Posted on 3/4/2008 5:50:50 PM

Basketball Betting - Phoenix Suns vs. Portland Trailblazers

By D.S. Williamson

Phoenix Suns (- 2.5) vs. Portland Trailblazers (+ 2.5)

Tip-off: 10:00 pm EST.

The Suns have gone 2 and 4 straight-up since the Shaq trade. The Suns beat Boston by eight points and the Memphis Grizzlies by 14 points, but they lost to the Detroit Pistons by 30, to the Lakers by 6, to the New Orleans Hornets by 17, and most disturbingly, to the Philadelphia 76’ers at home by 5.

The key for the Suns will be whether or not Shaq can guard Tim Duncan this Sunday. Wait a sec - - I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m not sure Shaq can guard LeMarcus Aldridge tonight. The Trailblazers are only 9 games behind the Suns in the standings. That’s a lot, right? Uh, maybe not. The Blazers are definitely a different team with a healthy Brandon Roy. Guess what? He’s playing tonight! Let’s take a look at a few recent trends to help us figure this one out.

The Portland Trailblazers are 7 and 1 against the spread in their last 8 games on a Tuesday night.

The Phoenix Suns are 4 and 1 against the spread in their last 5 games on the road.

The Portland Trailblazers are 4 and 0 against the spread in their last 4 overall games.

The Phoenix Suns are 19-7-1 against the spread in the last 27 meetings between these two teams.

Shaq was brought in to play defense. Unfortunately, I don’t think that Suns’ general manager, Steve Kerr, understood that bringing in one slow guy could affect your entire team. The Suns still have to play small-ball in order to get leads. But now, they appear to wait for Shaq to get his feet under them before attacking when he is in the game. That’s not good. Steve Nash is showing signs of wear and tear and bringing in Shaq, which should have helped Amare’s game, has sort of hurt Amare in the sense that Shaq doesn’t present any sort of offensive threat at all. Teams can afford to double-team Amare because there’s no speed forward like Shawn Marion out there to grab rebounds off misses and shoot the 3-pointer.

Not cool. This is turning into a disaster. So, again, the Portland Trailblazers are only 9 games behind the Phoenix Suns in the standings. They have a healthy Brandon Roy, a terrific young forward in LeMarcus Aldridge, a good coach in Nate McMillin and two nice up and comers in Von Wafer and Martel Webster.

Oh, and in this game, the Blazers are getting 2.5 points at home. Yeah, I see an upset here.

The BetUS NBA gambling line is Portland Trailblazers + 2.5 against the spread at home versus the Phoenix Suns.

I like the Blazers to beat the Suns at home tonight.

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