{"id":4272,"date":"2009-04-20T09:41:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-20T14:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/2009\/04\/nba-free-picks-houston-portland-utah-la-lakers-game-2\/"},"modified":"2009-04-20T09:41:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-20T14:41:00","slug":"nba-free-picks-houston-portland-utah-la-lakers-game-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/2009\/04\/nba-free-picks-houston-portland-utah-la-lakers-game-2\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Free Picks: Houston-Portland, Utah-LA Lakers Game 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=Section1>\n<p class=MsoBodyText><font size=3 face=\"Times New Roman\"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The first weekend of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.betonline.com\/sports-betting\/basketball\" title=\"NBA playoff betting\">NBA playoff betting<\/a> featured a few exciting road-team upset victories, while the two biggest sportsbook favorites cruised. What will Tuesday&#8217;s NBA betting action bring to the Jazz <span class=SpellE>vs<\/span> Lakers odds and the Rockets <span class=SpellE>vs<\/span> Trail Blazers odds?<\/p>\n<p> <b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Rockets <span class=SpellE>vs<\/span> Trail Blazers odds &#8211; Tuesday, April 21 at <\/span><\/b><\/span><\/font><st1:time Hour=\"22\" Minute=\"0\"><b><span style='font-weight:bold'>10:00 p.m. ET<\/span><\/b><\/st1:time><b><span style='font-weight:bold'><\/p>\n<p> <\/span><\/b><span class=GramE>One<\/span> game is hardly enough to make a team hit the panic button, but <st1:City><st1:place>Portland<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> has to be at least a bit nervous about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.betonline.com\/sports-betting\/Rockets-Trailblazers-odds-927.aspx\" title=\"Blazers odds\">Blazers odds<\/a> after the drubbing it took in Game 1. The key to the game was balance; the Rockets had four players score 17 or more points, led by Aaron Brooks&#8217; breakout 27-point, seven-assist effort. Brandon Roy predictably did what he could in the Rockets <span class=SpellE>vs<\/span> Blazers line, scoring a team-high 21 for <st1:City><st1:place>Portland<\/st1:place><\/st1:City>, but none of his teammates scored more than eight points except Greg <span class=SpellE>Oden<\/span>. NBA betting fans should give the Blazers a mulligan on Game 1, as many of their young players were seeing their first-ever playoff action and may have been jittery. However, going forward, <span class=SpellE>LaMarcus<\/span> Aldridge and Travis Outlaw simply must be better to keep <st1:City><st1:place>Portland<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> in this series.<\/p>\n<p> Despite the loss, Portland was one of NBA betting&#8217;s best home teams in the regular season, so <a href=\"http:\/\/www.betonline.com\/\" title=\"online betting\">online betting<\/a> fans should expect the Blazers to bounce back and triumph at the Rose Garden in Game 2. <\/p>\n<p> Online betting pick: Trail Blazers<\/p>\n<p> <b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Jazz <span class=SpellE>vs<\/span> Lakers odds &#8211; Tuesday, April 21 at <\/span><\/b><st1:time Hour=\"22\" Minute=\"30\"><b><span  style='font-weight:bold'>10:30 p.m. ET<\/span><\/b><\/st1:time><b><span style='font-weight:bold'><\/p>\n<p> <\/span><\/b><span class=GramE>The<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.betonline.com\/sportsbook\/nba-lines.aspx\" title=\"Jazz vs Lakers\">Jazz <span class=SpellE>vs<\/span> Lakers<\/a> line rivals the Cavaliers <span class=SpellE>vs<\/span> Pistons line for the least-exciting, easiest-to-predict matchup in NBA playoff betting. Game 1 went as scripted; the Lakers jumped out to a 22-point halftime lead and coasted the rest of the way. The Jazz were an awful road team in online betting this season and that problem should only be compounded in the playoffs. They&#8217;re simply not in the same league as the Lakers, even if <span class=SpellE>Deron<\/span> Williams (17 assists in Game 1) and Carlos Boozer (27 points) are bringing it. Don&#8217;t be surprised if the Jazz come out firing and jump to an early lead, but the Lakers will still take Game 2. Pick <st1:City><st1:place>Los Angeles<\/st1:place><\/st1:City>.<\/p>\n<p> Online betting pick: Lakers<\/p>\n<p class=MsoBodyText><font size=3 face=\"Times New Roman\"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>More <a href=\"http:\/\/www.offshoreinsiders.com\/\">basketball picks<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.offshoreinsiders.com\/index.php?PageID=31\"><span class=GramE>live<\/span> odds for the NBA<\/a> <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><a\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.offshoreinsiders.com\/\"><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'>OffshoreInsiders.com<\/b><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first weekend of NBA playoff betting featured a few exciting road-team upset victories, while the two biggest sportsbook favorites cruised. What will Tuesday&#8217;s NBA betting action bring to the Jazz vs Lakers odds and the Rockets vs Trail Blazers odds? Rockets vs Trail Blazers odds &#8211; Tuesday, April 21 at 10:00 p.m. ET One &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/2009\/04\/nba-free-picks-houston-portland-utah-la-lakers-game-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">NBA Free Picks: Houston-Portland, Utah-LA Lakers Game 2<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeduffy.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}