Los Angeles Lakers (24-14, fifth in the Western Conference) vs. Portland Trail Blazers (20-22, ninth in the Western Conference)<\/p>\n
Portland, Oregon; Saturday, 10 p.m. EST<\/p>\n
BOTTOM LINE: The Portland Trail Blazers host the Los Angeles Lakers in Western Conference play Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Trail Blazers are 16-14 in Western Conference games. Portland has a 12-17 record against opponents over .500.<\/p>\n
The Lakers are 18-10 against Western Conference opponents. Los Angeles is 11-9 against opponents over .500.<\/p>\n
The Trail Blazers’ 14.1 made 3-pointers per game this season are just 0.4 more made shots on average than the 13.7 per game the Lakers give up. The Lakers are shooting 49.7% from the field, 2.6% higher than the 47.1% the Trail Blazers’ opponents have shot this season.<\/p>\n
The two teams square off for the third time this season. The Lakers defeated the Trail Blazers 123-115 in their last matchup on Nov. 4. Deandre Ayton led the Lakers with 29 points, and Deni Avdija led the Trail Blazers with 33 points.<\/p>\n
TOP PERFORMERS: Avdija is averaging 26.1 points, 7.1 rebounds and 6.9 assists for the Trail Blazers. Shaedon Sharpe is averaging 20.2 points and 3.5 assists over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n
LeBron James is shooting 51.3% and averaging 22.4 points for the Lakers. Luka Doncic is averaging 2.9 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n
LAST 10 GAMES: Trail Blazers: 7-3, averaging 113.6 points, 45.9 rebounds, 24.4 assists, 7.6 steals and 4.1 blocks per game while shooting 45.0% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 113.2 points per game.<\/p>\n
Lakers: 5-4, averaging 115.2 points, 41.6 rebounds, 25.8 assists, 8.5 steals and 3.4 blocks per game while shooting 48.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 115.4 points.<\/p>\n
INJURIES: Trail Blazers: Scoot Henderson: out (hamstring), Deni Avdija: day to day (back), Matisse Thybulle: out (thumb), Blake Wesley: out (foot), Kris Murray: out (back), Damian Lillard: out for season (achilles).<\/p>\n
Lakers: Jaxson Hayes: day to day (hamstring), Austin Reaves: out (calf), Adou Thiero: out (knee).<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive<\/a> and data from Sportradar<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Lakers (24-14, fifth in the Western Conference) vs. Portland Trail Blazers (20-22, ninth in the Western…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[69274,847,48,52,51,47,50,49,7592,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-135920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-69274","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-headlines","12":"tag-la-news","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","15":"tag-los-angeles-news","16":"tag-nba-basketball","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}