T.M. Selection: Portland Trail Blazers.

I like the Portland Trail Blazers to cover the spread against the New Orleans Pelicans in this game on Thursday. The Trail Blazers have looked terrible down this final stretch of the regular season but they looked a lot better in their most recent game only losing by 4 points. They just played the Pelicans over a week ago and they lost that game but only by 10 points. The Trail Blazers are pretty much done for the year and they have even shut down most of their rotation for these final games. They still have a lot of young players on the court that have something to prove and I think they will be leaving everything on the court here in these final games of the regular season. The Pelicans have looked good in their games lately winning 4/5 of their previous 5 games but they aren't really the kind of team that has been blowing out their opposing teams and I don't think they are going to that in this game either. The Pelicans have already clinched a spot in the play-in games and with the number of games left in the regular season, they can only finish in 9th or 10th place and either way they would be playing the same team so the seeding really means nothing for them at this point. They are better off resting a majority of their rotation for most of this game and I think they will leave opportunity for the Trail Blazers to hang in there. The Trail Blazers may not be winning a lot of games but they still have players on the court who are giving their best effort every night and i think this is a good spot for them to at least keep this game close. I like the Trail Blazers to cover the spread here.

T.M. Prediction: 109-102 Pelicans.