The Los Angeles Lakers play host to the Portland Trail Blazers in Game 1 of the Western Conference first-round playoffs in Orlando on Tuesday.

The Trail Blazers made a miraculous run to sneak into the playoffs, catching the Memphis Grizzlies for the eight-seed in the west. It wasn't an easy trip to get to that point though, winning seven of their last nine games in total and finishing it off with a play-in game on Saturday. The thing that got them there was their offense, with Damian Lillard and Jusuf Nurkic performing at a ridiculous level. In fact, Lillard averaged 35.7 points, 4.1 rebounds, 9.4 assists and 1.5 steals in those games while Nurkic provided 18.1 points, 11.4 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 steals and 2.0 blocks per game in the restart. Getting Nurkic back was obviously a huge boost to this club and it's truly amazing just how big of a gap this team made up in just eight games. That makes them a scary opponent in the playoffs and it's unfortunate for the Lakers that they have to face a Western Conference finalist from last season.

The Lakers played some lackluster basketball in the Orlando restart, losing four of their last five games coming into this matchup. It looks like a mixture between poor play and not caring because this club had the top-seed locked up at the beginning of the restart. One has to believe that LeBron James and Anthony Davis have been saving themselves for this and it has them entering these playoffs as the odds-on favorite to take down the title. Everyone knows that James and Davis will do their part but it's on the role players to help them out. Guys like Dion Waiters, Danny Green, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Kyle Kuzma will ultimately determine how far this club goes and that really puts the onus on these superstars to carry the load.

These teams played three times in the regular season, with Los Angeles winning two of three. The winning club actually averaged over 130 points per game in the series.