Tip-off: Wednesday, 10:30 p.m. ET
Line: Blazers -9.5, Total: 220

The Blazers will be looking to pick up an easy home win over a struggling Lakers team on Wednesday.

On the 11-year anniversary of franchise legend Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game, the 2017 team failed to reaching that scoring total as a team on Sunday in an embarrassing 122-73 loss at Dallas (DAL -6). The 49-point loss was the worst in team history, and was made all the worse by the fact that it came against a Mavericks team that entered the matchup with more than twice as many losses on the year as wins. Los Angeles is now tied for last place in the Western Conference and has the fourth-worst record in the NBA at 16-32 (20-27-1 ATS), but is also only five games out of a playoff spot in the West. Their Wednesday night opponent, the Portland Trail Blazers, have a more realistic shot at that No. 8 seed, but their recent play has not been encouraging. Portland has lost four of its last five, but did close a four-game East Coast road trip with a 127-123 win over a strong Celtics team (POR +8). At 19-27 (19-27 ATS), the Blazers are one game back of the Nuggets for that aforementioned last playoff spot, although it’s questionable whether giving up a lottery pick would be in the best interest of a team that has a talented core but clearly cannot make a run at a title as currently constituted. Since 1996, teams coming off a win of six points or fewer (POR) are 56-100 ATS after 42+ games in matchups in which both teams allow at least 102 points per game. In the last five seasons (after 42+ games), matchups involving two teams scoring at least 102 points per game and one team that has scored at least 55 points in the first half of two straight games are 106-58 Over against the total. Lakers PG D’Angelo Russell is in the midst of sitting out 1-2 weeks with a knee injury, while Portland PF Ed Davis is doubtful for Wednesday night with a wrist injury.

As their record suggests, the Lakers’ performance on both offense and defense is mediocre at best. They have the 11th-worst offensive efficiency rating in the league at 106.4 points scored per 100 possessions and the absolute worst defensive efficiency rating, as they allow 112.9 points per 100 possessions. On the bright side, they have escaped Byron Scott’s restrictive coaching and play at a pace of 97.8 possessions per 48 minutes under new head coach Luke Walton, seventh-most in the NBA. Russell (14.3 PPG, 3.7 RPG, 4.4 APG, 1.2 SPG) is a talented young player and sports the team’s second-highest usage rate at 27.2%, but his 15.4 PER suggests his absence won’t have a huge impact on the team’s short-term ability to win. (Although perhaps the 49-point loss to Dallas suggests otherwise.) The Lakers have plenty of guards ready to step in and take more minutes, with the veteran of the group being SG Lou Williams (17.9 PPG, 3.0 APG, 1.1 SPG). He is taking a career-high 12.6 field goal attempts while maintaining his best field goal percentage since the 2009-10 season (43.2%) and the best three-point percentage of his career (37.2%). Before a 15-point day against the Mavericks, he had scored at least 24 points in three straight games. PG Jordan Clarkson (13.9 PPG, 1.3 SPG) and SG Nick Young (13.7 PPG) should also see more time. Spindly rookie SF Brandon Ingram (8.3 PPG, 4.1 RPG) has shown tangible improvement lately, and Walton experimented with playing him at point guard against the Mavericks. He had zero assists in 36 minutes, so let’s just say he remains a work in progress. PF Julius Randle (13.2 PPG, 8.5 RPG, 3.9 APG) is another key component of the Lakers’ young core.

The Trail Blazers are an above-average team on offense, ranking 11th in the NBA with an offensive efficiency rating of 109.3 points scored per 100 possessions. Their problem comes on defense, where they perform better than only the Lakers in allowing 112.3 points per 100 possessions. They play the 13th-fastest pace in the league at 97.1 possessions per 48 minutes. Both of Portland’s stars reside in the backcourt, and some have raised questions in recent weeks about whether the team’s best way forward might be to trade one of them. If they do so, it probably won’t be PG Damian Lillard (26.2 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 5.9 APG), who has been positioned as the face of the franchise. Lillard is seventh in the league in scoring, and he has proven that he can come up huge when the team does put itself into the playoffs. This year, however, he has progressively cooled off as the year has gone along: He averaged 27.0 PPG in November, 25.1 in December and is putting up 23.3 thus far in January. He did, however, put up 28 against the Celtics and 30 in the team’s previous game. His partner in crime is SG C.J. McCollum (23.5 PPG, 3.5 RPG, 3.7 APG, 1.2 SPG), a similar player who continues to improve at the age of 25. Despite sharing the same backcourt, they nearly both rank in the top 20 in the league in usage rate—Lillard is seventh, McCollum is 21st—so it’s a good bet that any given Blazers possession will end with one of them. McCollum absolutely torched the Celtics with a 26-point first half and 35 points on the night. Quite a few guys get significant minutes at the wing for Portland, including SF Maurice Harkless (11.0 PPG, 4.7 RPG, 1.1 SPG), SG Allen Crabbe (10.4 PPG), SG Evan Turner (9.3 PPG, 4.0 RPG, 3.3 APG) and SF Al-Farouq Aminu (7.4 PPG, 7.1 RPG, 1.0 SPG). C Mason Plumlee (10.9 PPG, 7.7 RPG, 4.3 APG, 1.2 BPG) has become both a strong rim defender and passer from the interior, and PF Meyers Leonard (5.7 PPG, 3.2 RPG) showed some fire with a couple forceful dunks against Boston.