Portland Looks to Narrow San Antonio Lead to One

The NBA Northwest division Portland Trail Blazers have their backs against the wall in tonight’s Game 5 of their best of seven semifinals series in the Western Conference versus the San Antonio Spurs.

The Trail Blazers are behind 3-1 in the series after winning on Monday night at home 103-92 for their first win of the series.

Tony Parker, the Spurs high scorer and point guard is close friends with Nicolas Batum, the playmaking guard for Portland. Both play on France’s national team.

Parker spoke highly of Batum after the Portland guard dominated Game 4, helping Portland to stave off elimination and a sweep of their series with San Antonio.

Parker said he was happy for Batum, that Batum was playing well and doing everything on his part to help his team win.

On Monday, Batum scored 14 points, grabbed 14 boards and dished out 8 assists.

Portland’s head coach Terry Stotts knew he had to shake things up a bit in the game. He assigned Batum to cover his countryman, mentor and friend Parker.

The move to put Batum on Parker seemed to do the trick as Parker managed just 14 points in the game after averaging over 26 in the three previous games in the series.

Batum said he did his job, by slowing down Parker. However, Batum was quick to say that Parker has had a great series and is a great champion.

Parker led the Spurs in scoring but had only one assist and turned the ball over three times. The Spurs scored just 92 points after averaging over 116 points per game during the first three games of the series.

Batum’s 14 points were helpful for Portland, but it was his 14 rebounds and 8 assists that represented much more for the Trail Blazers.

If San Antonio wins, they will reach the conference finals for the third consecutive season. The series winner will face the winner of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Clippers series which the Thunder leads 3-2.

The Spurs have four NBA Finals titles and have been in the postseason for 17 consecutive seasons.

This is the first time Portland has been in the second round of the postseason in 14 years. The Trail Blazers defeated the Houston Rockets in Game 6, 99-98 to win the series 4-2.

Portland was the last NBA team to extend a series to its seven games after losing the first three. In 2003, Portland lost the first three games against Dallas but extended the series to 7 games but lost the deciding game.

Portland has lost 17 of the past 22 games straight up in San Antonio versus the Spurs.

Portland has covered the spread in just 2 of the past 7 games it has played against the Spurs in San Antonio.

The total has cashed OVER in each of the past five games San Antonio has played at home.

The Spurs are 20-2 straight up over their past 22 games played at home.

Pick: I like San Antonio to win and move on to the Western Conference finals.