Atlanta Hawks vs Portland Trail Blazers Prediction & Betting Tips - NBA

Prediction published on 26/03/2024, 21:19  by Joseph King | Modified on 26/03/2024 at 21:20 in NBA Prediction

The Atlanta Hawks will look to make it three in a row when they host the plodding Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday evening. The Hawks are 10th in the Eastern Conference with a 32-39 record while the Trail Blazers are 14th in the West at 19-53.

Atlanta pulled off a stunning 120-118 home win over the red-hot Boston Celtics on Monday, overturning a 30-point deficit for the biggest comeback win of the 2023/24 season. De’Andre Hunter’s dagger three (part of his team-high 24 points) with nine seconds remaining ultimately sealed the deal for Atlanta and snapped Boston’s nine-game winning streak. The Hawks will hope their tremendous giant-killing win will spur them on to finish the regular season strongly ahead of the play-in tournament. Atlanta has a 5.5 game lead over the 11th-placed Nets but trail the eighth-place Sixers by 6.5 games. Barring a near-perfect finish, Atlanta will be locked into either ninth or 10th-place where they’ll have to go a perfect 2-0 when the play-tournament rolls around to qualify for the postseason.

The Trail Blazers have no hope of making the play-in tournament as they have long been eliminated from contention. They’ve already started looking towards the future and have been using this time to give some of the rookies and young players court time. However, this unfortunately means that results will suffer as Portland comes into this game riding a seven-game losing streak. Their most recent defeat came at the hands of the Rockets on Monday as Houston locked up a 110-92 home win over the young Blazers. The visitors, who have already had problems scoring the basketball this season, are averaging just 104.3 points per game over their last seven games. They’ve at least been able to play decent defense, with 115.1 points per game allowed over this current losing streak about in line with their seasonal average of 115.7 (ranked 17th in the NBA).