Brook Lopez has been huge for the Brooklyn Nets in the second half of the season. (Getty)
With the NCAA championship Monday night, there are no originally scheduled NBA games. However, Portland and Brooklyn have a re-scheduled game from January 26, so there is still some money to be won from the professional game.
The Nets are fighting for the playoffs, while the Trail Blazers are fighting for seeding and home court advantage as a 4-seed.
All odds are provided by sports books monitored by OddsShark. For odds on all of today’s games, click here.
Here are today’s picks:
Portland Trail Blazers (+6.5) at Brooklyn Nets
The main reason the Nets are favored by six points is because this is a random re-scheduled game… and because half of their team won’t be playing in it. LeMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum and Chris Kaman will all miss this game.
The Trail Blazers have to travel all the way to the east coast for this one game and then travel back west for a home game two days later. And they have not been a good team out east all year. Looking at Portland’s last two east-coast trips, they haven’t won a game. After the first Brooklyn game was postponed, they lost at Cleveland, Atlanta and Milwaukee. In March, they lost at Washington, Miami and Orlando. In addition, the Blazers aren’t a great road team to begin with.
However, this is the Nets and not exactly a team to trust against the spread. They are 13-21 ATS at home all season and are coming off an embarrassing 32-point loss on Saturday in Atlanta. The Nets have won six of their last seven games, but none of them by double-digits.
But the Blazers on the road without multiple starters? The Nets are the play.
The Pick: Nets -6.5
