Over the course of the past month the Portland Trail Blazers have been a wrecking ball, racking up wins on par with the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs. Their recent surge is the punctuation on the solid play that Portland has demonstrated the entire season, pushing them into the playoff picture.
In December, we covered the peculiar case of the 2015 Portland Trail Blazers and wondered what it might mean for the rest of their season as we approached 2016. It’s March now, in case you haven’t checked a calendar recently, and the Trail Blazers having been blazing a trail right into the playoff picture.
It would be great to think that head coach Terry Stotts got together with star Damian Lillard, read our article, and then made some major adjustments that turned the dial on the Portland radio from Modest Mouse’s “Float On” to Slayer’s “Raining Blood.”
Truly, what probably got this Blazers team playing, and winning, like they just equipped the plasma sword from Halo was a phone call Lillard made to Team USA. After Lillard had been left off the list of 30 finalists for the 12-man Team USA squad that will compete this summer in the 2016 Summer Olympics, he put in a call the team and found himself added as a 31st finalist.
Portland enters their Friday matchup with the Toronto Raptors with a record of 19-8 in 2016, 7-2 since it was announced that Lillard would be added to the Team USA finalists. That stretch includes a 51-point firebombing by Lillard in a win over the Warriors, one of just five losses Golden State has suffered all year.
While Damian carries the most responsibility for the success, we detailed a lot of what was helping Portland get by early in the season. They’ve done more than just get by since mid-December, moving from 11-16 and outside of the playoff picture, to 33-29 and the 7th seed position with a 2.5 game lead on the 8th seed Houston Rockets and a full 4.0 games ahead of the Utah Jazz with just 20 games to play.
The stretch run to the playoffs is going to be amazing all across the NBA, but Portland’s current form sets them apart from the pack. ESPN’s Zach Lowe is heralding the resurrection in the Rose City in print and on his podcast while Dave Deckard, Erik Gundersen and friends are sitting back and thinking or tweeting, “See, told you so.”
One of the biggest things that I referenced in the December piece on the potential of Portland was their pace, it stood out like a sore thumb. The team had a top-six ranked eFG%, but for all their valuable shooting, they failed to move the ball well, ranking near the bottom of the league in pace. Sure, it’s great to hit shots, all the more shots that are valuable, but if your pace is lagging, you’re essentially taking points off the board. That problem was compounded by the reveal that the Blazers slumped on defense in the early going with a starting lineup that was 80 percent turnover from last year.
The eFG% has been mostly consistent. There has been a dip, but they still rank among the league’s top 10 teams at 50.9 percent. That pace problem? It is looking better. They were down below 94.0 for two whole months at the beginning of the season, but during their February tear it was up to 97.0. So, like we called for in December – consistent eFG% and improved pace could lead to more success. Looks like the Blazers got that figured out and the results have been remarkable.
Surely that isn’t everything. No, it isn’t. The dynamic duo of Lillard and C.J. McCollum was a surprise at the beginning of the year, but what started as a surprise has quickly turned into one of the two or three best backcourt combinations in the league with Steph Curry-Klay Thompson in Golden State and Lowry-Derozan in Toronto. The early numbers from Lillard and McCollum were strikingly similar in per 36 scoring to Lillard and Aldridge in 2015, the combined scoring difference was -0.4. During their last 10 games, the Blazer backcourt combo have pushed their per 36 combined scoring to 53.9 points. Fifty-three. Point. Nine.
On defense, Mason Plumlee is an established negative which highlights what Portland misses most about Robin Lopez in rim protection. Again, the adjustment here is good by the Blazers. After an early season where Plumlee logged 29.0 minutes per game, his role has been mildly reduced and he hit a per game low in February at 23.7 minutes. The reduction in minutes seems to have helped ease his defensive effort and liability issues as his points saved by 36 minutes has improved by nearly a full point since mid-December. He’s still a negative, but now just -0.16 – the same number as Anthony Davis of the New Orleans Pelicans and 0.02 better than his own backup, Meyers Leonard.
Ed Davis continues to be the great signing that I had hoped he would be. Honestly, Davis is averaging 11.0 points, 12.5 rebounds, 1.4 blocks and 1.1 steals per 36 minutes off the bench. His points saved is also considerably better than what Plumlee and Leonard have to offer, he actually saves points – a modest 0.30.
The best of the Portland bunch? Why, that would be Noah Vonleh. The young forward acquired via trade with the Charlotte Hornets has been presented with all the opportunity in the world this year, getting the vote of confidence to start for Stotts and leading the Portland core of big men in rim protection numbers at 0.68 points saved per 36. It isn’t just the frontcourt, the whole team has locked it up Wedding Planner style since December which was a defensive crater month for the Blazers. The team has improved each month since then and in February they were down from 110.1 to 104.8. To say that is a great improvement might be underplaying what has been a greatly improving situation in Portland.
Maybe we should have expected this all along. With Lillard as the only returning starter, it was bound to take the Trail Blazers some time to integrate newly acquired players and role players turned starters into the Stotts system. A system that has had its own fluctuations over the season, Stotts was going as far as 10 deep for a string of games before shortening up his rotation again.
Integration and familiarization plus a spurned turned motivated Lillard equals significant improvement and winning a lot more games.
There are 20 games left on the Portland schedule and they have a comfortable lead on the Jazz, the closest non-playoff competitor. Their remaining schedule is split 10 home and 10 road games, including a stretch in mid-March where they will play seven of nine on the road with trips to Golden State, OKC, San Antonio and the Clippers all sandwiched into that stretch. If Portland can maintain or widen their lead on the 9th seed during that stretch, the Blazers will have the distinguished pleasure of having been a member of the Lottery Mafia for less than a full season in a year when they were left for dead.
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