A historically bad Spurs team travels to Portland to face a shorthanded Blazers squad. Sascha Paruk looks at his favorite wager for this battle between the two worst teams in the West. The post San Antonio Spurs vs Portland...

With just one win in the past 24 games, the Spurs visit the Trail Blazers on Thursday night Portland is coming off a 130-113 home win over Sacramento despite missing key players See the full Spurs vs Trail Blazers odds, props, and predictions for Dec. 28

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The Western Conference-worst San Antonio Spurs (4-25, 2-12 away, 11-18 ATS) travel to Portland on Thursday night for the first of back-to-back games against the Trail Blazers (8-21, 4-10 home, 14-15 ATS) at the Moda Center (7:00 pm PT/10:00 pm ET).

Losers of five in a row straight-up and four in a row against the spread, the Spurs head into Thursday’s game as 4.5-point road underdogs against a Portland team that has the chance to get its ATS record back to .500 with a convincing win tonight.

Spurs vs Trail Blazers Odds

Somewhat surprisingly, the Blazers are only -175 moneyline favorites in Thursday’s NBA odds. The Spurs come back as a +150 moneyline underdog to end their five-game skid and win just their second game since Nov. 3rd.

The NBA public betting splits are massively lopsided in Portland’s favor so far; the Blazers are getting 92% of ATS handle and 91% of moneyline handle, but note that the public is currently just 212-220-15 against the spread so far this year.

 

Odds as of Dec. 28 at ESPN Bet. New customers can claim an ESPN Bet promo code to wager on Spurs vs Blazers on Thursday. 

Thursday’s game is the first of three meetings between San Antonio and Portland this season.

Spurs vs Blazers Injury Reports

Concerningly for Portland, both guard Shaedon Sharpe (thigh) and center Deandre Ayton (knee) are out for the Spurs game. Sharpe is third on the team in scoring, averaging 16.8 PPG along with 5.3 RPG and 3.3 APG. Ayton leads the Blazers in rebounding at 10.8 RPG and adds 13.1 PPG.

The Spurs have no significant injuries to report in today’s NBA lineups, though leading scorer Victor Wembanyama is expected to sit out one of the two games in Portland, and there has been no word on which it will be.

Portland Routs Sacramento Last Time Out

While the injury news for the Blazers certainly isn’t good, Portland fans can take some comfort in the fact that both Sharpe and Ayton missed the last game, which was arguably the team’s best performance of the season.

The Blazers put the boots to a solid Sacramento team (130-113 home) on Tuesday, getting a team-high 29 from leading scorer Anfernee Simons (27.1 PPG, 5.3 AGP) and a career-high 25 points from 27-year-old rookie center Duop Reath (8.6 PPG, 3.1 RPG in 15.3 MPG) off the bench.

Portland only has two wins in its past 11 games. They currently sit 27th in Offensive Rating (109.1), 18th in Defensive Rating (115.2), and 26th in Net Rating (-6.1).

San Antonio Thumped by Jazz for Fifth Straight Loss

The Spurs had a decent opportunity to notch just their fifth win of the entire season on Tuesday, facing the Jazz (13-18) at home as 2.5-point underdogs. But after the Spurs took an early 32-17 lead, it was all Jazz from there on out. Utah had erased the entire 15-point deficit before halftime and won each of the final three quarters to run away with a 130-118 victory.

San Antonio got a team-high 26 points from Keldon Johnson off the bench while Devin Vassell had 22 and Victor Wembanyama had 15 points and seven rebounds in just 24 minutes while nursing an ankle injury.

Wembanyama isn’t on the Spurs’ injury report on Thursday but, as mentioned, is expected to sit out one of the two games in Portland for load-management reasons.

Wembanyama currently leads the Spurs in both scoring (18.3 PPG), rebounding (10.6 RPG), and Player Efficiency Rating (18.0) but San Antonio remains one of just a handful of teams that doesn’t have a single player in the top 50 of PER in the league. He has faded slightly behind OKC’s Chet Holmgren in the latest NBA Rookie of the Year odds.

San Antonio vs Portland Player Props

Player props from the DraftKings app.  

Spurs vs Trail Blazers Prediction

By all metrics, the Blazers are a much better team than San Antonio at the moment. In fact, the advance metrics say every  team in the NBA is better than the Spurs. San Antonio ranks dead-last in Net Rating (-12.1), nearly a full point lower than the Detroit Pistons (-11.2), who have only won two games all season and just set a new NBA record with their 27th straight loss.

San Antonio was also last in Net Rating, but at just -9.9. To find a team that finished a season with a Net Rating this poor, you have to go all the way back to the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats (-15.0), who went 7-59 in a lockout-shortened season.

In other words, the Spurs aren’t just playing bad basketball, they’re playing historically bad basketball, and I am betting on that continuing tonight.

Spurs vs Trail Blazers pick: Blazers moneyline (-175) – two units

Sascha Paruk’s 2023-24 NBA betting record:

10-8-2 ATS (+1.41 units) 8-8 ML (+1.05 units) 5-11 player props (-6.6 units)

All wagers one unit unless expressly stated otherwise. 

 

The post San Antonio Spurs vs Portland Trail Blazers Odds, Player Props & Prediction (Dec. 28) appeared first on Sports Betting Dime.

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