Portland Trail Blazers vs Cleveland Cavaliers Prediction & Betting Tips - NBA

Prediction published on 15/11/2023, 07:33  by Joseph King | Modified on 15/11/2023 at 07:48 in NBA Predictions

An inter-conference matchup in the NBA on Wednesday sees the East’s 11th-place Cleveland Cavaliers taking on the West’s 13th-place Portland Trail Blazers. The Trail Blazers opted to blow up the team and enter into rebuild mode by trading away star point guard Damian Lillard in the offseason. The result has been a team that has unsurprisingly started the year slow with a record of three wins and seven losses over the first 10 games. To make matters worse, Portland has been hit by the injury bug at the start of the season. They’ve only had their best player Anfernee Simons for one game and have been without third overall NBA draft pick Scoot Henderson for all of November. What’s more, Malcolm Brogdan, one of the team’s most efficient scorers, will also miss out on Wednesday’s game. The Blazers’ last outing finished in a 115-99 loss to the Jazz on Tuesday, the team’s fourth straight defeat. They’ll have to deal with playing a back-to-back in this game as well as their third in the last four days.

The Cavaliers have been riddled with injuries to start the year as well, resulting in a 4-7 record and 11th-place in the Eastern Conference. Cleveland will undoubtedly start to rise up in the rankings as this team is simply too talented but they’ve certainly had their struggles early on. After looking like they were finally free of their injury concerns, point guard Darius Garland has gone down yet again and will miss this game with a neck strain. The visitors will also be without Isaac Okoro, Ty Jerome and Ricky Rubio, leaving them shorthanded at the guard position. After a terrific 118-110 away win over the Warriors, the Cavs were unable to follow that up with consecutive wins. Cleveland fell to a 132-120 away loss to the Sacramento Kings on Monday, meaning that last season’s fourth-seed has yet to win two games in a row this season.