With the Trail Blazers sporting a 2-0 series lead over the Oklahoma City Thunder, it may be easy to jump on Portland’s bandwagon now but at least one former player has been high on them for a while now.
Hall of Famer Charles Barkley apparently picked Damian Lillard & Co. to advance to the Western Conference Finals before the playoffs even started. He recently stood by that pick.
Speaking on The Dan Patrick Show Wednesday morning, the NBA on TNT analyst said he still likes Portland, despite the fact that they lost Jusuf Nurkic for the rest of the season.
A month ago, I picked the Trail Blazers before [Nurkic] got hurt. So, I still like Portland in the West. … A month ago I picked Portland and I’m going to stick with that. … Before Nurkic got hurt, I thought the Trail Blazers — going out and getting Rodney Hood and [Enes] Kanter — made them the favorites in the West and I still like them in the West.
Chuck has been known to make some rather unique predictions on the set. There haven’t been too many people that have predicted the Trail Blazers to make it very far in the playoffs but he sees something in Portland.
Of course, the series shifts to Oklahoma City on Friday for Game 3 so the Thunder will certainly be hoping to turn things around behind the home crowd.
But, if the Trail Blazers continue playing like they have, there may be no stopping Lillard and C.J. McCollum. Barkley may be on to something with his pick.
The Thunder are favored by 7.5 points in Game 3.
