Portland at Utah (12/11/2008)

I went against the Blazers Tuesday and I mentioned then that the value has left the building. Portland has definitely turned the corner and with that, the public is backing the Blazers like there is no tomorrow. Portland is 15-8 yet just 11-12 ATS against the number including a 0-5 ATS run and that is due to inflated lines as it has actually won three of those five games outright. With Portland winning at a fevered pace and the public lining up behind, the linesmakers have no choice but to inflate the numbers and that is no doubt the case again on Thursday.

These teams met three times last season, twice in Utah, with the Jazz favored by 14 and 8.5 points in the two meetings in Salt Lake City. Now flash forward to this season. These teams met in Utah on November 5th with Utah the favorite by 6.5 points. Since then, Portland has gone 14-6 while Utah has gone 11-9. Apparently that three-game difference causes a huge line shift but I’m not buying that as Utah was not at full strength and these teams have not made up that much difference in such a short amount of time.

Portland is 8-7 (6-9 ATS) on the road and because of the solid straight up record, the value in its lines has been eliminated as proven by the dismal ATS records. Of those eight wins, I only consider one to be good and that was against Orlando back on November 10th. The others have come against losing teams (Sacramento, Minnesota), Eastern Conference teams (Miami, New York, Washington, Toronto) or struggling teams (Detroit). Going back to last season, Utah is 6-1 ATS when favored at home by fewer than four points. 9* Utah Jazz