NBA Free Premium Play 12/17: Portland Trail Blazers @ Cleveland Cavaliers

Portland  at Cleveland

NBA - 501 Portland Trail Blazers @ 502 Cleveland Cavaliers ***Free Premium Play*** Portland will play tonight their third game of the road trip and they are 2-0 so far w/ blowout win @PHI, and a terrific comeback win @DET w/ after a strong 26-15 4th quarter score and Damian Lillard’s clutch shot in the Overtime. All their 5 starters logged at least 40 minutes of action so a physical letdown could happen tonight @CLE. I had the OVER in that game @DET and I was expecting DET’s frontcourt to dominate the poor interior defense of the Blazers and indeed they did: POR ended the game w/ 68 points in the paint while 65% of their shots were near the basket. One of the key factors for this improved play from the Cavaliers lately has been their frontcourt, led by Andrew Bynum. Note that CLE was averaging 33.8 points in the paint/game in the first 17 games of the season but in the L6 games = 44.3 ppg! I expect CLE frontline to have a nice offensive edge vs. the Blazers in this area. Even though Lillard is playing better defense this season, he is still a subpar individual defensive player – the Blazers defense is ranked just #20 defending Pick n Rolls Ball Handler plays for some reason! The bad news for them is that Kyrie Irving is playing his best basketball of the season right now – he’s been named the Eastern Conference of the week and in the L3 games he scored 37, 31 and 19 points w/ nice 19/6 A/TO ratio! I also expect Cleveland to have a nice offensive edge in Irving vs. Lillard and/or Mo Williams. Obviously, the Blazers offense will have some key edges as well mainly w/ Aldridge shooting from the outside vs. slow footed CLE frontcourt. Cleveland is yet to be consistent in-game as Mike Brown is still looking for the best rotation but I think that the Cavaliers will be extremely competitive tonight and the Blazers should have been favored by just one ball possession, therefore I’m taking the Cavaliers tonight as my Single Dime Play! Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 502 Cleveland Cavaliers (+5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bovada