The Portland Trail Blazers are 48-31 and are one of the three teams in the West to have already secured their spot in the 2018 NBA Playoffs. They’re currently the 3-seed in the Western Conference and can clinch home-court advantage.
The Portland Trail Blazers are currently on a four-game road trip and have completed half of it with an 0-2 record. The Blazers suffered a severe loss to the Dallas Mavericks and then got beat by the Houston Rockets, who own the best record in the NBA this season.
The Blazers have been without Maurice Harkless and Ed Davis for over a week now, as both guys are dealing with injuries. Harkless underwent knee surgery on his left knee, and Davis suffered a sprained right ankle against the San Antonio Spurs.
During Tuesday night’s loss to the Mavericks, Damian Lillard sprained his left ankle. He finished the game in Dallas as he tried to spark a comeback for the Blazers. The Blazers then headed to Houston, where Lillard sat out.
It doesn’t seem that Lillard will miss much time. After the loss to the Rockets, Lillard told NBCSN reporter Jason Quick that he intended to play against the Spurs on Saturday.
Damian Lillard tells me his plan is to play Saturday in San Antonio. Says his left ankle sprain is feeling better.
— Jason Quick (@jwquick) April 6, 2018
That’s good news for the Blazers organization. With three games left in the season, they need one win to secure a top-four spot in the West and get home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
The Blazers haven’t had home-court advantage in a playoff series since the 2008-09 season, where they lost to the Houston Rockets, 4-2.
It won’t come easy for the Blazers as they fight for home-court as the season ends. In the last three games, two of them are away against the Spurs and the Denver Nuggets, and then the Blazers play at home the final game of the season against the Jazz, who are one of the hottest teams in the league.
Here’s a closer look at each team
Spurs:
- 45-34
- Fifth in the West
- Three games behind the Blazers
- Lost two games in a row
Nuggets
- 44-35
- Ninth in the West
- Four games behind the Blazers
- Won four four in a row
Jazz
- 46-33
- Fourth in the West
- Two games behind the Blazers
- Won four games in a row
Best shot at a win?
The Blazers’ best shot at winning a game against one of those three teams and securing home-court is against the Spurs.
Portland will be getting a rested Damian Lillard back for this game, and he will be on a mission to help the team win. Lillard always seems to have good games against the Spurs. For his career against the Spurs, he is averaging 25.9 points, 6.2 assists and 4.9 rebounds per game.
The Blazers will need those type of numbers from their star player as they head into San Antonio, where the Spurs have only lost eight games all season. The Spurs and Blazers have met twice this year and have split the series 1-1.
As of late, things have been a bit rough for the Spurs. On the court, they have lost two games in a row and four of their last six. Off the court, they have been dealing with an unusual situation involving their star player, Kawhi Leonard, and his hesitancy to come back from an injury even though he has been cleared by the team to play.
The Blazers have also lost two straight and should have secured home-court a couple of games ago. I think the Blazers will be determined to get a win against the Spurs with Lillard back and then can hopefully rest their starters the last two games of the season with home-court locked up.
The little problems the Spurs are having right now and the reward the Blazers receive by getting home-court and getting a chance to rest their main guys if they win should be enough to scrape out a victory.
Next: 2017-18 Week 25 NBA Power Rankings
Both the Nuggets and the Jazz have been hot. The Blazers don’t want to have too much pressure when facing those teams at this point of the season. Getting a win at the Spurs and then resting those two games would be very beneficial for this Blazers squad. They don’t want to be expending a lot of energy at the end of the season and risk tiring themselves out or having another injury occur as they get ready for the first round of the playoffs.