NBA Playoff Betting Preview Game 6 Portland Trailblazers at Houston Rockets

Published on April 30, 2009 by admin · No Comments

The Portland Trailblazers will look to stave off elimination in their playoff game against the Houston Rockets in Houston on Thursday. The Rockets lead this best of 7 Western Conference Quarterfinal series 3-2 as they look to close out the series on their home court. Portland was able to hold serve on their home court on Tuesday defeating the Rockets 88-77 as 5 point closing line favorites. Game 6 is scheduled to tip off at 9:30PM Eastern Time with television coverage provided by TNT. LVSC has sent out the opening point spreads for game 6 and the home team Houston Rockets are 5 ½ point favorites with the total opening up at 180. The road team has seen the early money, as the Trailblazers are currently 5-point underdogs. The total has saw play slightly to the under as the over under is currently 179 ½.

The Blazers extended the series off of their defense limiting the Rockets to just 77 points and containing the Rockets center Yao Ming from shot attempts. Yao is averaging less than 10 shots a game in this series, which is 3 ½ shots less than his season average. Yao’s shot attempts are important for the Rockets because he is shooting over 58% from the field in this series. The Trailblazers have been effective in double teaming Yao because they have the bodies in the middle to do it with Greg Oden and Joel Przbilla. With the double teams on Yao, Rockets shooter Luis Scola has benefited with open looks and has contributed with a 17 ½ point per game average and 58 ½% shooting from the field. The key for the Blazers to pull off an upset in this series is the offense from LaMarcus Aldridge. In Portland’s two victories Aldridge has scored 27 points in game 2 and 25 in game 5 and over 55% shooting from the field in both wins. In defeat he has converted on 17-44 for just a 13 point per game average.

Trend: The Under is 3-0 in their past 4 meetings

The Wagerline consensus has 63% of the bettors on Houston -5

The Wagerline consensus has 59.6% of the bettors playing over 179 1/2