Portland Trail Blazers: 3 takeaways from win over Indiana Pacers

3. The defense really is much improved

My fellow Blazers beat writer Raymond Simms already touched on this, but I honestly think the improvement of the Portland Trail Blazers defense remains one of the most underrated stories of the 2017-18 season.

Just as Simms stated, the Blazers allowed 108.5 points per game and 110.8 points per 100 possessions last season, which ranked 24th and 23rd in the league, respectively. Over the course of Portland’s six preseason games , they allowed 91.9 points per 100 possessions, which ranked sixth in the NBA.

Thus far, the Blazers have held the Phoenix Suns to 76 points and the Pacers to 96 points. In both cases, the Blazers also showed improvement in perimeter defense, limiting the Suns to just 25.9 percent shooting from behind the arc and the Pacers to 22.2 percent shooting from behind the arc. In addition, they’ve out-rebounded both teams by 12+ boards.

If the Blazers are able to keep up this kind of defensive efficiency, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them earn one of the top-5 seeds in the Western Conference.