Portland Trail Blazers: The 8th Seed In The West Is Theirs To Lose
Taking a page out of the Eastern Conference’s playbook, the bottom of the West is filled with teams below .500 with only one playoff spot left and it’s the Portland Trail Blazers’ spot to lose.
The Portland Trail Blazers are currently only half a game out of the playoffs behind the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference, but they should still be the frontrunners to snag that last spot.
The seventh seeded Grizzlies are already 6.5 games ahead of the eighth seed and barring any drastic injuries or trades, the top seven seeds in the West may already be solidified.
The Blazers hold a record of 19-27, which is on pace to be their worst record since Terry Stotts’ first year as head coach in 2012-13, after finishing the last three seasons above .500, including two straight 50+ win seasons.
The bottom of the Western Conference is extremely clustered and every team that is currently out of the playoffs has a shot to win their way in (yes, even the Los Angeles Lakers).
The Blazers are currently in ninth place but are only separated from the Lakers, who are last in the West, by four games. The other teams included in the mix are the New Orleans Pelicans, Sacramento Kings, Minnesota Timberwolves, Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns, but there is no reason the Blazers should wind up below any of them.
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Of those teams, including the eighth-seeded Nuggets, none of them can put a team on the court that has two top-10 players at their respective position.
Point guard Damian Lillard and shooting guard C.J. McCollum are not only the heart and soul of this Blazers team, they also are the teams two leading scorers. Dame is averaging 26.2 points per game and C.J. is averaging 23.5 points per game (career highs for both).
While the Kings and Pelicans have superstars in DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis, the loss of Rudy Gay for the Kings due to injury and the Pelicans’ lack of scoring from anyone not named Davis or Jrue Holiday puts these two teams in tough situations to reach a playoff spot that is a lot farther away than their records might indicate.
The Lakers have the worst defense in the NBA and their youth has been an issue all year. At this point, it’d be shocking (and I’d be out $20) if they can somehow finesse their way into the eighth seed.
The Timberwolves have the talent to compete with the Blazers, but their inability to play cohesive basketball for a full 48 minutes is hard to overcome and has been costing them games all season long.
Despite Devin Booker‘s recent offensive explosion, the Suns ranking in the bottom third in both offensive and defensive rating is not a recipe for making the playoffs.
The Mavericks are on a bit of a “hot streak” if you will, winning five of their last 10 games, but they still rank dead last in the NBA in points per game (96.6) while also allowing the fourth most points per game (100.0). Harrison Barnes looks to finally be turning into the player everyone thought he could be, ranking second in the league in Isolation PPG at 5.5 behind only James Harden, but that’s the issue with this team — one of their go-to plays on offense cannot be a Harrison Barnes isolation.
The only team who can compete with the Blazers is the one that sits right above them at 18-25, the Denver Nuggets.
When comparing the Nuggets and Blazers, the battle comes down to how much better the Blazers backcourt is than the Nuggets frontcourt.
The Blazers’ strength is clearly the backcourt and the same can be said about the Nuggets frontcourt. As stated earlier, the Blazers have two top-10 position players in Dame and C.J. along with an improving (and expensive) Allen Crabbe, who is shooting 42.7 percent from three-point range to complement his 10.4 PPG, and Evan Turner, their defensive specialist.
That group is marginally better than the younger Nuggets backcourt of Jamal Murray, Emmanuel Mudiay, Gary Harris, Will Barton and the only Nuggets rotation player over 30 years old, Jameer Nelson. The potential is there for these young guards, but as of this season, there is no debating that the Blazers have them beat in that area.
The Nuggets frontcourt is (over)loaded, consisting of Kenneth Faried, Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Jusuf Nurkic and their star-in-the-making, Nikola Jokic. Nurkic has seen his minutes go down recently as Jokic has excelled, and also due to the fact that they simply don’t play well next to each other. A deal that ships Nurkic out of Denver before the trade deadline wouldn’t surprise me. Actually, I’d be surprised if they didn’t find him a new home before the Feb. 23 deadline.
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The highest net rating for a Nuggets lineup that includes both Jokic and Nurkic is -7.1. In fact, there is only one Nuggets lineup combination where Nurkic has a positive net rating (Nurkic, Nelson, Murray, Chandler, and Barton has a net rating of +4.7, per NBA.com). This isn’t to say that Nurkic is a bad player, because he most definitely is not, it’s just that Jokic is a much better fit for this team.
The Blazers frontcourt rotation consists of Mason Plumlee, Moe Harkless, Al-Farouq Aminu, and Ed Davis. While Harkless and Aminu are good defenders, their scoring output could be better, especially since their starting center, Mason Plumlee, only averages 10.9 points per game. The Blazers frontcourt cannot score on the same level as the Nuggets and puts more of the burden on Dame and C.J.
The Nuggets frontcourt can cover all of their own weaknesses on offense, from shooting to passing to crashing the glass, they can do all of it at an above average level.
However, the Nuggets don’t have a top-five frontcourt while the Blazers have arguably the second best backcourt in the NBA behind the Golden State duo of Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry. The Blazers are one of three teams in the NBA (Kevin Durant/Steph Curry for Golden State and Kyrie Irving/LeBron James for Cleveland) that can trot out two top-15 scorers in the league (Dame ranks seventh in the NBA while C.J. is 15th), something the Nuggets simply can’t mimic.
Besides the Lakers, the Nuggets may have the worst defense in basketball, ranking second to last in Defensive Rating and 28th in Opponent PPG. Even with such a loaded frontcourt, they allow 46.9 PPG in the paint, fourth highest in the NBA.
The Blazers, on the other hand, aren’t necessarily any better on defense than the Nuggets, ranking 26th in Opponent PPG and 27th in Defensive Rating, but they do allow over four points less in the paint at 42.1 PPG.
The one area where the Blazers hold a steady edge over the Nuggets is their ability to turn the ball over less. The Blazers have a slightly higher Assist-to-Turnover Ratio than the Nuggets (1.61 compared to 1.56) and a much lower Turnover Percentage (13.7 compared to 15.2, which ranks 12th in the NBA for Portland and 24th for Denver, respectively).
Only a half game is what separates these two teams over halfway through the season. With the potential to make the playoffs with below average teams, both teams may be more inclined to make a trade or two come the deadline that could make them even just the tiniest bit better.
Next: 2016-17 NBA Power Rankings: Week 14
Damian Lillard has always played with a giant chip on his shoulder and while fighting for the last playoff spot with a losing record sounds bad when I say it out loud, he always knows how to fight against adversity and rise above it. Dame has the better team, now he has to lead them and prove it to everyone else.
(Stats via Basketball-Reference and NBA.com)