The Portland Trail Blazers and Denver Nuggets combined for an incredibly entertaining playoff series in the first round of the last postseason. On Sunday night, they will meet again as they both try to pick up a significant win over a team they could see in the Western Conference playoffs again in 2022. In our latest NBA predictions, we look at this Trail Blazers vs Nuggets showdown and make our pick in a game that will be impacted by injuries in a big way.
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Trail Blazers vs Nuggets Betting Pick
This game will be played at 8:00 PM ET at Ball Arena on Sunday, November 14, 2021.
Why Bet The Nuggets:
✅ The Portland Trail Blazers will be significantly compromised coming into this game from an injury perspective. Damian Lillard is not going to play in this contest due to abdominal pain, which will limit what their offense is capable of here. That alone will tilt things significantly in the Nuggets’ favor.
✅ This just isn’t a good matchup for the Portland Trail Blazers’ bigs, as they are not equipped to handle all of the ways that Nikola Jokic can put the ball into the basket. Jokic will be able to drag Jusuf Nurkic and the other Blazers bigs out of the paint, damaging them with his perimeter shooting while clearing things out for other players to make runs to the bucket.
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✅ Portland has been one of the worst teams in the NBA on the road this season, even with Damian Lillard available for their previous road games. The Trail Blazers are 1-6 against the spread on the road this year, with only the Atlanta Hawks having a worse record against the number when on the road during the 2021-2022 campaign.
Portland Trail Blazers
The Portland Trail Blazers picked up a win in their last game, beating the lowly Houston Rockets by 12 points on the road to improve to 6-7 on the season. Here, the Trail Blazers will be playing their fourth straight road game, which will certainly take its toll on the team. And some of that toll is already being felt by the top player on the Trail Blazers,a s Damian Lillard is set to miss this matchup with the Nuggets.
Lillard is out for this game with abdominal pain, which will force Portland to rely more on CJ McCollum than they might like. McCollum is a great complimentary piece for the Trail Blazers, but has shown that he doesn’t exactly work as the top star on a roster. In this game, he will need to be great for the Trail Blazers to have a chance to win.
Denver Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets have played four straight home games, winning all four of them coming into this fifth straight contest at Ball Arena. Denver has taken down the Heat, Hawks and Pacers already during this homestand, all of whom could appear in the postseason this year. On Sunday night, they will face another potential playoff team in the Trail Blazers.
Denver isn’t without its injury issues coming into this game, as Michael Porter Jr. is set to miss this contest due to injury. Without Porter Jr., it will be interesting to see where the offense will come from for Denver behind Nikola Jokic. But as long as Jokic continues to have success against the Trail Blazers, Denver should be in good shape.