Projected Line: Portland by 3 points
The Wizards have been playing good basketball lately. John Wall has been playing very well, but he doesn't play alone. Several players are now very confident and they are feeling useful to the team and this has been turning the Wizards into a very competitive lately or they wouldn't have defeated Oklahoma City, Atlanta and Denver, crushed Orlando or even being very competitive at LA against the Clippers. Of course that they don't have a good spot for today, but they have nice depth with a good bench to compensate that. The Wizards have now 10 players on the roster to contribute with quality. This is easy to see when four bench players of Washington ended with at least +8 points on +/- team points in their game at Denver: Trevor Booker, Kevin Seraphin, John Wall and Jordan Crawford. This turns Washington into a competitive team, even when one starter or two doesn't have a good game.
The same can't be said about Portland, who has been dealing with minor injuries from LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum and Damian Lillard. With these three players struggling, they stopped being competitive, as they have the worst bench in the league. Washington's defense isn't a good matchup for Portland, as in fact their first win of the season was exactly against the Blazers. This happens because Washington is a top team in defending pick and roll ball handler plays (#6 in the league) and post ups (#10) and these two kind of plays are exactly where Portland tries to have an edge on their matches with Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge.
Portland has been losing games mostly due to the lack of efficiency on their offense, but also due to their poor defense. They will come fired up for tonight's game, but Washington is playing with confidence and they have depth on their roster to make this game competitive. Therefore, I'll be taking Washington tonight.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 717 Washington Wizards (+6) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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