Yes, the Trail Blazers had to play last night falling, 116-113, at Denver when their huge comeback came up just short against the Western Conference-leading Nuggets. Portland had won four in a row entering that matchup.

The Kings are not the Nuggets. They are a 22-21 team that has failed to cover six of the last seven times when going against an above .500 opponent.

Sacramento has a much improved backcourt with De'Aaron Fox, Buddy Hield and Bogdan Bogdanovic. But it's trumped by Portland's star guard tandem of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum. The Trail Blazers also have the best big man on the floor, Jusuf Nurkic.

Portland should dominate the boards ranking third in the NBA in rebounding while the Kings are a bottom-10 rebounding team. The Trail Blazers also have defeated the Kings during the past four meetings going 3-0-1 ATS.