{"id":693885,"date":"2026-04-02T13:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T13:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/693885\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T13:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T13:03:17","slug":"why-this-matchup-decides-the-no-8-seed-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/693885\/","title":{"rendered":"Why This Matchup Decides the No. 8 Seed Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Portland Trail Blazers are fresh off the biggest win of the season as they beat the Los Angeles Clippers on the road to close the gap between the 8th and 9th seed in the Western Conference play-in picture. <\/a><\/p>\n

The Blazers have now won seven of their last 10 games and they are gaining momentum at the right time of the season; however, their previous success means nothing if they don’t take care of business in the final five games of the year<\/a>, beginning with a matchup at home against the rebuilding Pelicans. <\/p>\n

The Pelicans are coming into the game having lost five straight games to the Cleveland Cavaliers, New York Knicks, Detroit Pistons, Toronto Raptors, and Houston Rockets. In those contests, they have lost by double digits in each of their last three, so they are hoping to erase their past struggles by getting past the Blazers. <\/p>\n

The two teams have met three times already this season, and the Blazers have come out on top twice. In a weird schedule quirk, all three previous meetings between the two teams have been in New Orleans. This is the first time this season the Pelicans have visited the Moda Center. <\/p>\n

In order for the Pelicans to pull out a win against the Blazers at home, they have to play with the same killer mindset they have had over the last couple of weeks. They cannot take the Pelicans lightly, because a loss at home at this point in the season could be catastrophic to their playoff hopes as they try and fight for positioning in the play-in tournament.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

New Orleans Pelicans forward Zion Williamson dunks the ball against Portland Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija. | Stephen Lew-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

New Orleans Pelicans vs. Portland Trail Blazers Game Details<\/p>\n

\u2022 Matchup: New Orleans Pelicans vs. Portland Trail Blazers
\u2022 Date: Thursday, April 2
\u2022 Kickoff Time: 7:00 PM PST
\u2022 Location: Moda Center | Portland, OR<\/p>\n

What channel is Pelicans vs. Trail Blazers on?<\/p>\n

Pelicans vs. Trail Blazers will air on the Rip City Sports Network.<\/p>\n

How to stream Pelicans vs. Trail Blazers live<\/p>\n

Fans can stream the game live on:
\u2022 Peacock
\u2022 FuboTV (free trial available)
\u2022 Sling TV, Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV (subscription required)<\/p>\n

Radio and live audio<\/p>\n

\u2022 Rip City Radio 620 Portland
\u2022 Portland Trail Blazers Radio Network
\u2022 SiriusXM NBA Radio<\/p>\n

Pelicans injury report<\/p>\n

\u2022 SG Bryce McGowens (OUT – toe)
\u2022 SF Trey Murphy III (QUESTIONABLE – ankle)
\u2022\u00a0C Karlo Matkovic (QUESTIONABLE – back)<\/p>\n

Trail Blazers injury report<\/p>\n

\u2022 PG Damian Lillard (OUT – Achilles)
\u2022 C Robert Williams III (QUESTIONABLE – knee)
\u2022\u00a0SG Shaedon Sharpe (OUT – calf)<\/a>
\u2022 SF Vit Krejci (OUT – calf)
\u2022\u00a0PF Jerami Grant (OUT – calf)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers are fresh off the biggest win of the season as they beat the Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,559,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-693885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-clippers","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-clippers","12":"tag-laclippers","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangelesclippers","17":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116335255050757180","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}