Keagan Smith dives into his pick and prediction for the Portland Trail Blazers vs. Golden State Warriors matchup on Friday as part of the nine-game NBA slate.

The NBA Cup continues group play tonight with colorful courts all across the Association. The Portland Trail Blazers have slipped across recent games following their hot start to the campaign and look to break a four-game losing streak on the road. The competition to do so is stiff against Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors, who’ve also lost two straight contests but remain a challenger in a tough Western Conference.

Here’s a Trail Blazers vs. Warriors prediction and pick on DraftKings Sportsbook for Friday’s matchup.

Trail Blazers vs. Warriors prediction, preview

Portland Trail Blazers

The Blazers began the season with a handful of high-quality wins, but this is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately league. Dropping four straight certainly hurts, especially an ugly loss to the Mavs last weekend. While the offense is still performing well with the seventh-most PPG and 15th-ranked OFFRTG, the defense has fallen off quite hard at 26th in opponent scoring and 22nd in DEFRTG. The team’s NETRTG has also now dipped to -1.7, 20th in the league. On the bright side, Deni Avdija has fully taken a star leap with 25.9 PPG, 6.7 rebounds and 5.2 assists as the clear top option, and Shaedon Sharpe posts 22.6 PPG as well. Jerami Grant also remains a 6MotY candidate with 19.4 PPG off the bench, and Jrue Holiday keeps playing great ball as a distributor at guard with 16.7 points and 8.3 assists. However, both Sharpe and Holiday are out tonight, marking significant losses in the startive five. Portland still has talent without those two, but just needs to remember how to put it all together again.

Golden State Warriors

The Warriors are above .500, but not by much at just 9-8 overall. They’ve lost their last two contests on a Florida road trip to the Heat and Magic, but had rattled off three consecutive wins prior to that. Golden State currently leans on its defense with the 10th-fewest PPG allowed to opponents and the eighth-best DEFRTG, but the offensive results have not been as encouraging at 21st in scoring and 23rd in OFFRTG. The NETRTG sits at just +0.2, 17th in the league. Unsurprisingly, Steph Curry paces the squad with 27.9 PPG, his best total since the 2022-23 campaign. He’s complemented by Jimmy Butler, who averages nearly 20-5-5 while working as the second star here. The Warriors drew some ire for their two-timelines approach years ago, the young trio of Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody and Brandin Podziemski are actually the three next-highest scorers on the roster as well in the double-digits.

Trail Blazers vs. Warriors pick, best bet

On DraftKings Sportsbook, the Warriors are strong favorites at -10.5 with -410 odds on the Moneyline. The Trail Blazers hold +320 odds to win outright with a game total of 236.5 points.

With Portland missing two of its four top scorers, the outlook feels a bit dire tonight. Golden State’s defense is strong to begin with, but Holiday’s absence leaves the Trail Blazers without its best facilitator who sets up the offense and Sharpe’s injury means less of a downhill threat to pressure the rim. Expect tons of usage for Avdija and Grant with Toumani Camara possibly mixing in more on that side of the ball after averaging 12 PPG in a supporting role. The presence of Donovan Clingan in the paint does help against a weak center rotation the Warriors deploy, but even then, Draymond Green still mucks things up in the frontcourt even against bigger defenders.

The Trail Blazers simply don’t have the firepower to compete tonight against the savvy veteran duo of Curry and Butler, and any of the younger talents can pop on any given night for Golden State. The Warriors should see the chance to jump out to a big lead and potentially still cover this wide spread on Friday night.

Top pick: GS Warriors -10.5 (-105)