Round 1 of the NBA Playoffs continues on Wednesday night and we will see Portland Trailblazers travel to the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas to take on the Houston Rockets in game 2 of their best-of-seven series. The game has a start time of 9:30 pm (Eastern) and will be televised on TNT. Vegas odds have the Rockets listed as 6 point favorites, while the total sits at 214.5.
Stat Packs: The Portland Trailblazers went 54-28 on the year to grab the 5 th seed in the Western Conference and they started this series off right with a 122-120 OT win over the Rockets in game 1. Portland Has now won 10 of their last 11 games and they are 24-18 away from home for the year. Portland comes in averaging 106.7 ppg, which is 4th in the league. They are also ranked 15th in FG% (45%), 10th in 3pt shooting (37.2%) and 1st in FT shooting (81.5%). Lamarcus Aldrige leads the team in scoring at 23.2 ppg, while also leading the team in rebounding (11.1 rpg). Damian Lillard leads the team in assists (5.6), while scoring 20.7 ppg and hitting 39.4% from beyond the Arc. Wes Mathews (16.4 ppg), Nicola Batum (13.0 ppg) and Robin Lopez (11.1 ppg) round out the DD scorers for the team. Defensively the Blazers rank 22nd in points allowed (102.8 ppg) 11th in defensive FG% (45.1%) and 11th in 3pt defense (35.5%).
The Houston Rockets come in as the 4th seed in the West, and were a solid 33-8 at home for the year, but they lost a tough game to Portland in the opener to fall behind the in the series 1-0. Houston has has now won just 2 of their last 6 games. The Rockets are a high scoring offense that averages 107.2 ppg (2nd) on 47.2% shooting (5th). Not a good FT shooting team, as they hit just 71.2% from the line, which is 28th in the league. The offense is led by James Harden, who averages 25.4 ppg, while Dwight Howard leads the team in boards at 12.2 rpg and is 2nd in scoring at 18.3 ppg. Chandler parsons (16.6 ppg) rounds out the top 3 scorers on the teams. Defense is really an afterthought for this team as they come in ranked 23 rd in points allowed (103.1 ppg). They do rank 7th in defensive FG% (44.3%) and 9th in 3pt defense (35.3%), so not all that bad on defense.
Pick: Let's look at the Under in this game. These teams were clearly on pace for the Under in game one, but OT took care of that and the game sailed over the total. The teams really didn't shoot well in game one and I don't see them shooting well in this one either. Look for this game to finished under 210 points.
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NBA Playoff Update #1
Steve Fezzik, from Pregame.com, give his thoughts on how the NBA playoffs have gone so far and what to look for in the future.