The matchup is on April 17, 2016 at 10:30 PM ET. McCollum’s growth and their new players like Ed Davis, Maurice Harkless and Al-Farouq Aminu all improving more than anyone would’ve thought.
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The Trail Blazers were assured of the fifth seed by virtue of Dallas’ 96-91 loss to the San Antonio Spurs.
But the Clippers will also be trying furiously to win and in that effort, will be a lot of complaints toward the officials. This team is ready to silence the doubters, especially Paul, who is still looking for his first conference finals of his career. Los Angeles is one of the most disciplined teams in the league with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.84. For the Clippers, the less the better, seeing as he’s one of the best scorers in the National Basketball Association. The Clippers are allowing 33.3 percent shooting from deep and are grabbing 48 rebounds per game.
The Los Angeles Clippers’ path to the NBA Finals is littered with booby traps, unscalable walls and, in all likelihood, the history-making Golden State Warriors. Clips Nation writer Adithya and I traded e-mail Q&As about the upcoming Portland Trail Blazers vs. “He’s been a spark plug off the bench for us all season”, Malone said. If these playoffs really have been reduced to “the team with the best player on the court wins”, in this game that guy was Paul, as evidenced by the gaudy stat that L.A. outscored Portland by 29 when he was on the court. The Trail Blazers are 4-2 ATS in the last 6 meetings in Los Angeles. Game 2 will be 7:30 Wednesday. They also marked giant leaps surrounding Griffin’s integration back into the lineup after missing 47 games with various injuries.
According to oddsmakers from online sports book Bovada.lv, the Blazers are 10.5-point home favorites versus the Nuggets after the line opened at Portland -9.5.
Los Angeles only hopes that them earning it again this season will pay dividends. After the Blazers made the first basket of the half, they missed some shots bad, and made some mental errors, including AFA stepping on the sideline after receiving the inbound pass. For the Clippers, JJ Redick and Chris Paul would miss consecutive 3 pointers pretty badly on the same possetion. Pay attention to the rebounding edge as LA has dominated the Trail Blazers on the board this season. The Blazers intentionally fouled Jordan, a 43 percent free-throw shooter during the regular season who converted eight of 18 attempts for the game, but that failed to generate a rally, either.
CJ McCollum went just 3-of-11 from the field to finish with nine points, three rebounds and two assists in 37 minutes.
The Los Angeles Clippers, with an assist to turnover ratio of 1.84, rank third in the National Basketball Association. Watch Clippers vs Trail Blazers online free live streaming on the TNT TV channel or TNT Overtime live streaming tonight for what will hopefully be a close game.
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Jumpers from Paul and Jamal Crawford pushed the Clipper lead as large as 21 and Los Angeles looked thoroughly in control. Portland has a 14-15 record when they suffer a turnover rate equal to or exceeding this.
