Golden State Warriors vs. Portland Trail Blazers: Game 4 Prediction, Betting Odds, Steve Kerr Update

The Golden State Warriors are on the verge of sweeping their first round series in the 2017 NBA Playoffs, and they could advance to the conference semifinals without two of their most important pieces. Head coach Steve Kerr won’t be on the sidelines when the team visits the Portland Trail Blazers in Game 4 Monday night, and Kevin Durant might be inactive.

Game 4 is scheduled to start at 10:30 p.m. EDT. TNT will have the TV coverage, and viewers can watch a free live stream online with tntdrama.com.

The Warriors took a 3-0 series lead Saturday night, winning in Portland as assistant coach Mike Brown led the team in place of Kerr. Last season’s Coach of the Year missed the first 43 games of the 2015-2016 season with symptoms that resulted from complications with his back surgery. Kerr said the symptoms “took a turn for the worse” last week, and he didn’t rule out the possibility of his ailment forcing him to miss the entire playoffs.

“This is not going to be a case where I'm coaching one night and not coaching the next,” Kerr told reporters Sunday. “I'm not going to do that to our team, to our staff. We're hoping that over the next week or two, or whatever it is, I can start to make a definitive realization, a deduction, or just feel it that I'm going to do this or not.”

Golden State won Game 3 without Durant, as well. The All-Star missed his second consecutive contest with a calf strain. The injury isn’t considered to be serious, though the Warriors could choose to be extra cautious since they have a comfortable lead over Portland.

No matter the circumstance, the Blazers can’t seem to find the recipe to defeat the Warriors. Portland went 0-4 against Golden State in the regular season, losing twice by more than 20 points. The Blazers dropped the first two games of the series by double-digits at Oracle Arena, and they couldn’t protect their home-court in Game 3, despite holding a 16-point second-half lead when the Warriors didn’t have their head coach or their best player.

The Warriors have the NBA’s No.1 offense, and the Blazers can’t find a way to slow them down. Golden State has scored at least 110 points in all seven of their wins against Portland this season, and there’s little reason to believe they’ll fail to reach that mark Monday night.

Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum give Portland one of the league’s best backcourts, but no team in basketball has better starting guards than Golden State. Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and the rest of the Warriors are just too much for the Blazers to handle unless Portland’s stars are nearly perfect.

Lillard and McCollum combined to score 75 points and 63 points in Game 1 and Game 3, respectively, and it still wasn’t enough. When they totaled just 23 points in Game 2, the Blazers were blown out by 29 points.

Jusuf Nurkic, Portland’s third-best player, has only played in Game 3 of the series after suffering a nondisplaced fracture in his right leg. He’s been ruled out for Game 4, putting even more of a burden on Lillard and McCollum.

Golden State has been favored in every game this series, and the Game 4 betting line is seven points, via OddsShark. The over/under is 219.5.

Prediction: Golden State over Portland, 113-103