Portland Trail Blazers vs Golden State Warriors NBA Picks, Odds, Predictions 10/4/21

The Golden State Warriors and Portland Trail Blazers meet Monday in NBA preseason action at the Moda Center. The Golden State Warriors won 39 games last year and have missed the playoffs in each of the last two seasons. The Portland Trail Blazers won 42 games last year and will begin the Chauncey Billups head coaching era.

The Golden State Warriors say goodbye to Kent Bazemore, Kelly Oubre Jr. and Eric Paschall. The Warriors add veterans in Otto Porter Jr., Nemanja Bjelica and Andre Iguodala, while drafting Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody in the top-14 of the NBA draft. The real reason to be excited about the Warriors is the eventual return of the trio Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson. It seems like Thompson is close to returning but may miss a month or two of the regular season. However, when this Warriors team is whole, they’re in the running with the short list of teams that can push for an NBA title. After two down years, it kind of feels like the Warriors are back. 

The Portland Trail Blazers made a ton of changes to their roster, but I’m not sure Larry Nance Jr., Tony Snell, Cody Zeller and Dennis Smith Jr. are moving the needle. The addition of Ben McLemore has a chance to be big given his scoring ability. Still, the Trail Blazers will go as far as Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum take them, as there’s still not a third star to put this Portland squad over the top. Norman Powell and Jusuf Nurkic are nice players, but the Trail Blazers need a true third option to put themselves in a different class. It’s why the Trail Blazers have been bounced in the first round in four of the last five years and part of the reason why Lillard was in trade rumors this offseason. The Trail Blazers better find a way to win or they could soon lose one of their best players in franchise history.

The Warriors are 5-0 ATS in their last 5 Monday games and 6-0 ATS in their last 6 games overall. The Trail Blazers are 7-18-1 ATS in their last 26 Monday games and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games overall. The over is 4-1 in Warriors last 5 overall. The over is 6-1 in Trail Blazers last 7 overall. The over is 5-2 in the last 7 meetings.

The Golden State Warriors aren’t at full strength even if they wanted to be and Steve Kerr usually takes it easy on his key players in preseason games. We’ve seen Portland give decent sized doses of playing time to Dame and CJ in past preseason games and it’s important that the Trail Blazers get off to an encouraging start. Lillard needs to be given every reason under the sun to stay where he’s at, preseason or not.

I lean toward the Trail Blazers in their preseason opener.