2017-18 Portland Trail Blazers Game-By-Game Predictions

Welcome, Blazermaniacs, basketball junkies and fans of spreadsheet analysis alike. Boy, do I have a treat for you all today!

That’s right, tonight is opening night to another scintillating year of Portland Trail Blazers basketball, and that means one thing… overly detailed predictions that will make me look foolish sooner than later.

The Blazers bring almost the entire gang back, and are poised to make another run at the playoffs this year after squeezing in under the gun last season.  And, while they bring the majority of that squad back, a flurry of big name pick-ups by pretty much every top team in the Western Conference make another playoff appearance far from a sure thing.

If they are to make it again, the Blazers are going to have to continue the high-level play they showed last season after acquiring star center Jusuf Nurkic if they hope to make a return trip to the NBA’s second season.

Not surprisingly, the first few weeks of the schedule will be crucial, as the Blazers look to take advantage of a (comparatively) easier slate of games and also capitalize on their continuity as other top teams work to integrate new players into their lineup.

If the preseason means anything, the Blazers are off to a good start as they have looked excellent in going 5-1 and seem to be a prime candidate to jump out to hot start early on.

Of course, the preseason means just about nothing, so, yeah. Hard to get too excited about that.

And even if it’s just for one game, starting the season without CJ McCollum (suspended for opening night for taking a couple steps away from the bench during a preseason altercation he wasn’t involved in) is less than ideal. Particularly so in a Western Conference were one win or loss could easily be the difference between a playoff berth and a sitting at home waiting for the draft come mid-April.

With that said, let’s take a look at the full 82-game schedule and do some prognosticating!

I’m going full out this year and projecting a result and final score for each and every game on the schedule. While this gives me ample space to be totally wrong about every single game, you will never hear the end of it if I nail even one of my predictions on the nose.

And, just because I know most people don’t really care what I think the score of future games will be, I included some hard-hitting analysis of a select few marquee matchups.

(Note: “hard-hitting analysis” may be replaced with snide remarks and/or lame jokes without warning.)

On to the predictions!

Final Record: 45-37 (7^th place in West)

Home Record: 27-14

Road Record: 18-23

Points Per Game (scored): 106.0

Points Per Game (allowed): 104.8

Point Differential: +1.2