Portland Trail Blazers vs. Los Angeles Lakers, Game 1 Western Conference. The hard road of the Trail Blazers against the Lakers begins. This round will not be easy for them. In the regular season the Lakers proved dominant against the Trail Blazers. But things during the playoffs can change. For now the favorite is the number one of the conference.
Portland Trail Blazers: Leadership Above All.
The Trail Blazers performed well in the few remaining games of the regular season. But the Trail Blazers are underdogs, although many analysts say they can easily sweep the Lakers away. The last four games of the regular were consecutive victories for the team. The Trail Blazers closed the regular at 35-39 in the eighth place of the conference.
The team is scoring an average of 115 points per game, 42.12 FG points, 80.5% free throw shots, 12.76 three pointers, 20.47 assists, 12.49 turnovers and 28.6 points per quarter. The defense allows up to 116.2 points per game. Against the Lakers the team lost two games in the regular season.
Damian Lillard is a born leader, this season he is leading the Trail Blazers with 30 points per game, 46.3% FG points, 40.1% three pointers and 88.8% free throws. McCollum is the other player scoring twenty points on average this season at 22.2 per game. Nurkic, Whiteside and Anthony are all averaging over 15 points.
Los Angeles Lakers: Dangerous dependency.
The Lakers have a problem, which we have discussed previously, the team continues to depend on LeBron James and Anthony Davis. On the latter, things are not the best for him in the bubble. Davis’ numbers aren’t as strong as it was at the start of the regular season before the coronavirus. The Lakers only won three of the final games of the regular season.
The Lakers’ numbers are not the strongest of the season but its sufficient for the postseason. The team is scoring an average of 113.4 points per game, 42.34% FG points, 72.9% free throw shots, 11.01 three pointers, 25.39 assists and 28.25 points per quarter. The defense allows only 107.6 points per game and 39.06 FG points.
Davis is ahead of James on the list of the players with the best average per game with 26.1 points this season. Kyle Kuzma leads the bench with 12.8 points per game, 43.6% FG points and 31.6% three pointers. Dwight Howard and Alex Caruso are another pair of players who from the bench scoring 14 combined points on average.
My Free Pick & Prediction for Portland Trail Blazers vs. Los Angeles Lakers 08/18/2020 is: take the OVER 230.5 (TOTALS).
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