NBA Premium Play 01/10: Los Angeles Clippers @ Portland Trailblazers

NBA - 517 Los Angeles Clippers @ 518 Portland Trail Blazers

Projected line: Portland 1Q by 4 points
This is a big game for Portland, as it is a revenge game against the Clippers, who are coming from a nice home stretch, so today will be their first away match in some time and that won't be easy, especially early on the match. I have found some statements that make me believe that Portland will enter tonight's game on a full effort, ready to take the lead early on the match:

After Sunday night's blowout win over the Cleveland Cavaliers there was some uncertainty about what the Blazers had and hadn't done in an effort to get off to a hotter start. Coach Nate McMillan said he had tried to up the tempo during an afternoon shootaround while multiple players said nothing really happened out of the ordinary.

McMillan said Tuesday morning that the group had gone "three-quarters" speed on Sunday and clarified that he had intended to say that the team "should have done more" to pick up its energy after taking a day off on Saturday and opting for an afternoon shootaround instead of a morning shootaround.

"I just felt like we laid around and it was a long 24 hours," McMillan said. "That six o'clock game is a different time so now we don't have a morning shootaround, we've got an afternoon shootaround and laying around even longer. My thought was to move them around a little more than normal just to get them going. I felt like we were still asleep in the first half and we
finally woke up in the second half. We did move around but my thought was that we probably should move around even more."

Portland struggled early on the 1st quarter in their last four games (18-17 vs CLE, 19-30 @ PHX ,27-31 vs LAL and 21-26 @ OKC) and this is clearly something that they will put a lot of attention in tonight's game. The spot for this game clearly favors a strong start by the Blazers and therefore, I'll take them on the 1st quarter spread in here.

Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 518 Portland Trailblazers (-1,5) FIRST QUARTER @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes