6 Things We’ve Learned About The Portland Trail Blazers
By Duncan Smith
The defense is surprisingly stout
It’s no surprise that a team with Dame Lillard and C.J. McCollum is able to score a lot of points, but the Blazers have a secret weapon. That weapon is becoming less of a secret due to its potency as the Blazers keep winning, and that weapon is the defense.
The Trail Blazers have featured a sturdy defense over the last six weeks; since this 18-game stretch began on Jan. 10, holding their opponents to 101.8 points per 100 possessions.
That’s sixth-best in the NBA over that span, and it complements their fifth-ranked offense, which scores 110 points per 100 possessions, very well, producing a net rating of plus-8.2. That net rating is third-best league-wide, behind only the Spurs and the Warriors.
Joe Freeman, Blazers’ beat writer for Oregon Live, wrote a piece earlier this month dissecting the changes the Blazers made on defense in early January around the time this turnaround began, and they still remain in place.
According to Freeman:
"The voyage back to the basics started in a theater-style film room at the Blazers’ practice facility in Tualatin. It was there, a little more than two weeks ago, that Stotts and his staff gathered the players and told them they needed to improve on defense — finish the season in the top half of the league, to be exact — to become the playoff team they aspire to be. Starting that moment, they said, there would be a renewed emphasis on doing the things necessary to inch toward that goal."
The Blazers have focused on the defensive end in ways unexpected to fans and observers, and it’s paying off in the form of wins.
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