Portland Trail Blazers Playoff Preview: Los Angeles Clippers

If the playoffs started today, the Portland Trail Blazers would be matched up against the Los Angeles Clippers, without home court advantage, in the first round. As long as it’s not San Antonio, right? I’m not so sure.

The Trail Blazers fired up Chris Paul on Wednesday night, and the Clippers closed with a 41-30 fourth quarter en route to their third victory of the season over Portland in four tries. I went back and looked at each of these games to get a better read on what this series might look like and here’s what I found.

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Between roster moves and injuries, each match-up played out very differently with a few constants (LaMarcus Aldridge, Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan). Let’s take a quick look at each game before we dive into the takeaways:

Nov. 8, 2015 – Clippers 106 – Blazers 102

It’s hard to read anything out of a game so early in the season, but one thing jumped out about this game. J. J. Redick’s 30 points on 11-of-13 shooting from the field.

Later, we’ll get into why Portland’s defensive principles could lead to great guard play out of the Clippers. Specifically in this game, Wesley Matthews was frustrated chasing Redick through screens. He got into foul trouble early.

The Portland frontcourt kept them in the game. Robin Lopez, Aldridge, and Chris Kaman were Portland’s three leading scorers at halftime, but in the end Redick and Paul combined for 52 and were too much in the fourth quarter.

Jan. 14, 2015 – Clippers 100 – Blazers 94

This game was startling for the following reasons.

Portland was 30-9 heading into this game and playing great basketball.
LaMarcus Aldridge was on fire scoring 37 on 14-of-28 shots and a perfect 9-for-9 from the free throw line.
Damian Lillard had three points through the first three quarters of this game. At this point, it’s becoming obvious that Chris Paul and the Clippers’ style of defense is effective against Lillard.

Brook Lopez did miss this game, but Chris Kaman filled in admirably with 15 and 11. That did affect the bench though. This is the one game that Portland’s bench was outscored by the Clippers’ bench (actually Jamal Crawford scored all 25 of the Clippers’ bench points).

As unreliable as the Blazers’ bench has been, they actually have an edge over the Clippers bench, especially if Crawford isn’t healthy.

Mar. 4, 2015 – Blazers 98 – Clippers 94 OT

The only Trail Blazers’ win this season against the Clippers came when Blake Griffin was out of the lineup, and Chris Paul had a game-winning layup pop out on him at the end of regulation. That’s not comforting.

This was also the last full game Wes Matthews played for the Blazers. Aldridge had another monster game although he was forced to take 30 shots because, once again, Lillard went more than three quarters without a field goal. I’m sensing a trend here.

This was the crazy Lillard 18-rebound performance but he also had as many turnovers as points in this game. In retrospect, it’s amazing they pulled this one out. The reason: this was possibly Nicolas Batum’s best performance of the season to that date, and maybe since. He had 20 points, eight assists and seven rebounds on 6-of-11 shooting.

Apr. 1, 2015 – Clippers 126 – Blazers 122

This is a game that probably bothered both coaches considering the poor level of defense played all around. That’s a major concern for Portland moving forward no matter who they match up with, so that’s a story for another day.

Portland played a great first half offensively, but the Chris Kaman-Chris Paul altercation lit a fire under the Clippers and Paul, who finished with 41 and 17. Again, we’ll get to why the Clippers guards are likely to be effective against the Portland defense.

On the bright side, we saw some life from Damian Lillard against this Clippers team after two of his worst performances of the season.

On one hand, this game should tell us the most about what a first round series between these two teams might be like because all the roster moves have been made. On the other, there was so little defense played and that’s hard to imagine being the case in a playoff game.

So what did we learn? Although the roster differences made for a few different games stylistically between the same teams, there were some constants that we can examine.

Frontcourt

One thing that was consistent throughout all four games was that DeAndre Jordan guarded LaMarcus Aldridge for the majority of each. The Blazers did some creative things to get LaMarcus isolated on Blake at times (and when Blake was out Spencer Hawes), but they had to work to get those matchups.

In general, DeAndre guarded LaMarcus as much as possible. It’s hard to say if he was effective or not. Aldridge averaged just over 29 points and nine rebounds per game in the four meetings and shot 42 percent from the field.

Although those numbers are solid, they aren’t eye-popping. But there would be a stretch in every game where Jordan just could not handle LaMarcus.

When Aldridge’s turnaround is falling, he’s unguardable, and if that happens in a playoff series, Doc may have to consider doubling him, something he did rarely in the regular season.

But Aldridge was also beating the Clippers front court off the dribble at times, he got to the free throw line, and he’s even strong enough to back down DeAndre as he did in the play below:

DeAndre contributed in other ways also though. He averaged around 16 rebounds per game in their four meetings and shot 77 percent, including an 8-for-8 performance when Robin Lopez was out.

He is also one of the best screen-setters in the NBA. There are multiple stories over at Vantage Sports lauding the Clippers screening abilities and DeAndre is a big reason why. Here’s what Henry Steckel of Vantage Sports wrote about DeAndre’s screening ability.

"“Jordan is one of the most effective screening centers in the game. Of all screens that Jordan sets, 19.57 percent result in a score, open shot, shooting foul, or Assist+ (i.e., ‘Set Screen Outcome Efficiency’).”"

In general, Portland is a team that does not like to foul. They give up the third least amount of free throw attempts per game according to NBA.com. Because of that, they didn’t employ the Hack-a-DeAndre much during the regular season, but it was very effective in the one game they did win during the regular season.

In that game, the Clippers were up by eight with around five minutes to go, DeAndre missed six straight free throws, was taken out of the game, and Portland went on a 7-0 run, so Terry Stotts may have to consider that strategy come playoff time.

Chris Paul lives in the midrange. It is his bread and butter.

Of course, DeAndre Jordan is mainly out there to do the dirty work, for most teams, Blake Griffin is the one that scares you. For Griffin, at least in the matchups against Portland, it was all about if the midrange jumper was falling.

In the first matchup of the season (remember early November) Griffin only made three shots over 15 feet. In the two games he played after that he hit a combined 16 shots from 15 feet and out including two three-pointers in the most recent game.

In the post, LaMarcus’ length can bother Blake, which is an advantage for Portland, but as we’ll see, Portland’s defense trends towards giving up midrange jumpers and if those are falling for Blake it would be very dangerous for the Blazers.

Guard Play

So much of guard play in the NBA today is predicated on the pick and roll, and how teams handle that defensively can determine the types of shots guards (and forwards) will often get out of that action. This great piece by Vantage Sports clearly indicates that the Blazers and the Clippers fall on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to how they guard the pick and roll.

In short, the Clippers employ an aggressive, hard hedge philosophy in which the man defending the screener (usually a big) extends out to slow the ball handler down until the guard can recover. This often results in trapping, especially with an elite defensive guard like Chris Paul.

This defense relies on crisp help and defensive rotations on the back end. The possession below displays how effective this defense can be at taking a team out of what they are trying to do:

This is part of the reason why Damian Lillard has struggled so much against the Clippers this season. It’s exacerbated by the incredible defensive talent and instincts of Chris Paul, but Damian struggles a bit under pressure and it’s part of the reason he’s averaged well over three turnovers per game against the Clippers.

As for the Blazers, they play the pick and roll in almost the exact opposite way. Made very popular by Tom Thibodeau, Portland asks its big men to sit down way low in the paint to eliminate driving lanes for opposing guards. As the Vantage Sports piece points out, Portland takes this strategy to the extreme:

"“The Blazers hedge on barely over 1 percent of all on-ball screens defended, choosing to drop back approximately 93 percent of the time. To put that in context, no other team drops back more than 85 percent of the time.”"

This puts a lot of pressure on the Portland guards to fight through and over screens. There is no going under the screen in this system. It’s something Damian Lillard has been working on since the day he’s gotten to the NBA, and he’s improved tremendously, but he’s still not elite at it.

This type of defense also is designed to chase guards off the three-point line and protect the basket. It’s a way of forcing mid-range shots. It’s part of the reason why Portland is first in three-point makes allowed, second in three-point attempts allowed, and third in opponent three-point percentage, according to NBA.com.

This is Portland’s core defensive philosophy. It’s hard to adjust from something so ingrained in the players and coaching staff. The problem comes when Portland matches up against the Clippers. All three of the Clippers guards, Paul, J.J. Redick, and Jamal Crawford are great midrange shooters.

Here were Terry Stotts’ comments after the latest loss (from John Canzano, The Oregonian):

"“Give the Clippers credit,” Stotts said, “they made a lot of shots in the second half, shot the ball well from three, shot the midrange well, we kept them away from the rim and we scored more points in the paint than they did, but ultimately they made a lot of shots… we probably could have defended a little bit better but we kept them out of the paint…”"

I’m not arguing for changing defensive principles on the fly, but Stotts can’t be surprised that the Clippers hit midrange shots, right?

Among NBA guards who have taken at least 100 shots from the 15-19 foot range, all three are in the top 20 according to NBA.com. And even more concerning is Chris Paul. Chris Paul lives in the midrange. It is his bread and butter.

Chris Paul Shot Chart via NBA.com /

Paul has taken over 300 shots between 15 and 19 feet, only Dirk Nowitzki and Aldridge have taken more, and Paul is more effective in that range by far. Paul shoots 51 percent from that area while Dirk and Aldridge, both considered midrange shooting wizards, shoot 48 percent and 42 percent respectively.

Chris Paul’s offensive game is literally tailor-made for the Portland Trail Blazers’ defense and the Los Angeles Clippers defense (and Chris Paul) is literally tailor-made to slow down Damian Lillard.

That’s a huge concern for the Blazers Playoff hopes.. It means both Arron Afflalo and Nicolas Batum have to play consistently great for Portland to advance in my opinion, and that hasn’t happened all season long.

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