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Hawks vs. Trail Blazers Odds

Two of the Association's most enigmatic teams will meet in Portland on Monday night as the 25-25 Atlanta Hawks head to the City of Roses to take on the 23-26 Trailblazers.

There are several question marks for this game as Trae Young is questionable for the game for the Hawks, while Josh Hart and Jusuf Nurkic are questionable for the Blazers.

These teams have been incredibly hard to get a read on this season, seemingly zagging every time a zig is expected and vice versa.

Let's dive in, though, and see if we can find an edge to bet.

Atlanta Hawks

This is game one of a five-game road trip for the Atlanta Hawks, who are 12-14 overall and just 11-15 against the spread away from home this season.

The Hawks have dropped three of their past four, but won five straight prior to this dip. That's been the story with Atlanta all season. Every time the Hawks seem to start clicking, things turn sideways a bit, and they seem to stall out before they can climb much further in the standings.

Young has been putting up excellent numbers, even in the losses, but the impact just isn't there right now, in part because of how much he gives away on the other end. Atlanta relies heavily on pick and rolls from its backcourt, but lacks the shooters on the wings to really make teams pay for over-focusing on the point of attack. (Would be nice to have a player like Kevin Huerter, huh?)

The Hawks defense has plenty of holes, especially in the paint, but they have done well limiting opponents from 3. Atlanta allows the sixth-fewest opponent points per game from deep, thanks in large part to a strong field goal defense from beyond the arc. That's a good fit to slow down Portland, who ranks seventh in the league in 3-point field goal percentage and is in the top 10 in the league in points from 3 per 100 possessions.

Portland Trail Blazers

If the Hawks have been hard to solve, the Trail Blazers have been truly impossible. The team got off to a very fast start, despite not having its full rotation intact, and won nine of its first 12 games.

To the befuddlement of every NBA bettor, as the season has transpired, and Portland has actually added a lot of those pieces back into the rotation, the Trail Blazers have seemingly lacked the ability to live up to their potential. They sit near the bottom of the west and have underperformed their Pythagorean record despite a veteran-heavy team with one of the best crunch-time killers in league history.

The offense has often been central to Portland's problems, with the over returning a dismal -12.2% ROI this season. On the flip side, betting Portland's unders has returned a 3.3% ROI so far.

While we're mentioning the under, it's worth noting that the Blazers, despite their backcourt not exactly having the best defensive reputation, are among the best teams in the league at defending the pick and roll. As noted above, the Hawks are heavily reliant on that play type, giving us another edge to the under.

Hawks-Trail Blazers Pick

As you can probably tell, betting either side in this game terrifies me. My gut (and my number) likes Portland -2 by a point or two, but the Trail Blazers have proven too inconsistent for my backing.

On the flip side, there isn't much to scare me off the under. I have this total at 232, and FanDuel opened at 236. If Young is out I love this number, but even if he plays, I'd bet it at that 236 total. If Young is out, which would hurt the Hawks offense greatly and help their defense almost as much, I'd take this down to 230.

Pick: Under 236

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