I’ve spent the last four days looking back at a Portland Trail Blazer season rife with success, fraught with tribulations, and was both rewarding and disappointing.
The rewards were making the playoffs for the second straight year, winning 50+ games for the second straight year (in the very difficult West, both achievements shouldn’t be taken for granted), and wresting control of the Northwest Division, for this season anyway, away from the injury-riddled Oklahoma City Thunder.
The disappointment came from seeing almost every Blazer except for Damian Lillard go down with injury, confirming that 2013-14’s healthy year was a fluke, like a mild winter in Chicago or a date I actually enjoy.
The most disappointing thing about this year is seeing the Memphis Grizzlies in the playoffs…a team that’s dominated the Blazers this year.
Your first-round schedule for the Blazers-Grizzlies series:
Sunday, April 19: @ Memphis, 5:00 PM, TNT
Wednesday, April 22: @ Memphis, 5:00 PM, TNT
Saturday, April 25: @ Portland, 7:30 PM, ESPN
Monday, April 27: @ Portland, 7:30 PM, TNT
*Wednesday, April 29: @ Memphis, TBD
*Friday, May 1: @ Portland, TBD
*Sunday, May 3: @ Memphis, TBD
*-if necessary
The point guard matchup between Lillard and Mike Conley should be a great one. Conley, who was hurt in last year’s playoffs, is a good defender and a steady hand at the head of the Memphis offense, which has cooled off.
Memphis stands at 21st in offensive rating after the All-Star break, struggling to score just as the Blazers have struggled to defend since the midseason break. I have more confidence in Conley’s ability to engineer scoring chances against Portland than I have in Lillard being able to defend Conley; if the Grizzlies are going to play defense-only wing Tony Allen, Blazers coach Terry Stotts will likely hide Lillard on Allen, and hope Lillard doesn’t get beat on backdoor cuts.
I think the point guard matchup will swing in Memphis’ favor. Conley has more balance to his game, and the one trump card Lillard can play, endless range on his outside shot, hasn’t been there for him this season.
He’s missed a ton of his open threes, as I detailed on Tuesday, and without those outside shots falling, Lillard has to dive headfirst into the Memphis defense, where bruisers Marc Gasol and Kosta Koufos will be waiting to deny him. It will resemble a man covering himself in steaks, bathing in barbecue sauce, then leaping into a pit full of starving wolves.
Lillard won’t be able to get to the hole against the Grizzlies defense. The threes must fall, and fall like the frickin’ spring rain, if the Blazers are to win the series.
It would help Lillard and CJ McCollum if LaMarcus Aldridge could make the Grizzlies defend him with Gasol, pulling the big man away from the rim. Zach Randolph is game and tough, as well as wily, but he just doesn’t have the length or athleticism to challenge Aldridge’s release on that fadeaway; it’ll be Terrence Ross all over again.
When Aldridge does get it going, whether forcing Gasol to come out on him or forcing double-teams, he must be willing to swing the ball the other way. Aldridge, like all star players, will continue to go at teams until he can’t go anymore, but when he’s going one-on-one, that excellent Memphis defense can just sit back, load up, and wait for Aldridge to make his move.
Going one-on-one will only help the Grizzlies. Aldridge and the ball handler (either Lillard, McCollum, or Batum) will have to run a huge diet of pick plays, and Stotts will have to find ways to get the defense to move.
One wrinkle could be a usual Lillard-Lopez pick-and-roll, with a side pick play being run for McCollum or Arron Afflalo when he gets back. Aldridge would be the screen-setter on the side play; guys would be terrified to leave Aldridge alone. Lillard could either have a lane to the hoop, a diving Lopez heading to the hoop, or an open McCollum/Afflalo for a catch-and-shoot three. Lillard could also choose to stop on a dime and take a midrange jumper, if he has the space.
Unfortunately, the Blazers are too comfortable with watching Aldridge go one-on-one and living with the results. They can’t beat Memphis that way, like they did the Rockets last year.
On defense, there aren’t many shooters for Portland to worry about; the only guy who’s got a decent stroke is Courtney Lee, and there are no stretch options for Memphis at the four. Everybody else on the roster either can’t shoot or has struggled, and Jeff Green is too streaky for them to count on consistently.
There are still ways that Memphis can score, of course. Randolph is as clever a post player as they come, and Gasol has mastered the high-post hub skills his brother, Pau, used to help the Lakers win two championships. The Grizzlies are a very traditional team, and while Portland also plays two true big men, Aldridge’s perimeter game and dislike for bumping and grinding in the post on defense gives Memphis a way to attack the Blazer defense.
A classic response would be for Aldridge to guard Gasol, but the Grizz center has his own post moves he can bust out when the mood takes him, and he is larger than Aldridge; the reason Robin Lopez is on the team is so Aldridge can avoid tangling with dudes like Marc Gasol.
Expect either Randolph or Gasol to attack Aldridge and that bum thumb on defense whenever they can, forcing the Franchise to expend precious energy tangling with these brutes.
The auxiliary players on either team have specific skills that can shift the momentum in their team’s favor; Tony Allen’s lockdown defense, Nicolas Batum’s release-valve ball handling, Lee’s dead-eye shooting from three (he shot 40% during the regular season), Meyers Leonard’s stretch-four ability, Beno Udrih’s pick-and-roll play opening up jumpers for himself, Chris Kaman taking advantage of backup bigs. Expect all of these things to come into play at some point during the series.
The X-factor for Portland is CJ McCollum, while the X-factor for Memphis will be Jeff Green. Whichever one of these perimeter players, inconsistent through much of the regular season, that can give their team the scoring and playmaking they both desperately need will swing a game or two–and perhaps the series.
In the end, the fact that Memphis took all four games in the season series in 2014-15 can’t totally be ignored. Regular season games don’t usually factor into how teams will play in April and May, especially when the season games took place in December and January. The Western Conference, though, had a constant playoff-like atmosphere whenever two great teams squared off, and Portland and Memphis were great teams.
The Blazers don’t quit. The Blazers also are on the verge of getting the fight beat out of them after the physical season, and the resulting injuries, as well as just plain bad fortune.
There will be a game when Aldridge goes off for 40 and single-handedly delivers a victory, and there could be a game where the Blazers get hot and make something like 12 or 15 threes from deep. Unfortunately, the ingredients needed for a consistent formula for beating the Memphis Grizzlies, which the Portland Trail Blazers lacked even when fully healthy, just aren’t there.
With the possible exception of the red-hot San Antonio Spurs, Rip City could not have gotten a worse matchup in the first round.
Prediction: Grizzlies in five.
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