Portland Trail Blazers: 3 takeaways from 3-game road trip

3. Spreading the wealth again

The Trail Blazers offense is fun to watch, led by the dynamic scoring duo of Lillard and C.J. McCollum. However, it also has the tendency to fall stagnant at times. This has been an issue for a few years: the team ranked 21st and 23rd in assists per game in 2015-16 and 2016-17, respectively.

But the problem seems to have gotten worse. The team’s 18.5 assists per game this year are the fewest in the NBA. Four Blazers make more than two-thirds of their field goals unassisted: Lillard (74.9 percent), Evan Turner (74.6), McCollum (66.8) and Shabazz Napier (66.7).

However, Portland began sharing the ball a little more over the course of this road trip. They averaged 23 assists per game over their last three games. Specifically, they had 19 in their loss to the Hawks and 25 each against the Bulls and Cavaliers.

The 25 assists back-to-back is only the third time this season that the Blazers have had back-to-back 20-assist games. The 50 combined assists are the most they’ve had in a two-game stretch this year.

Outside of Lillard’s six dishes against Cleveland, McCollum led the team with 4.7 assists per game during the road trip. Napier averaged 4.3 assists while Evan Turner averaged 4.0 per game. Even Jusuf Nurkic, who averages 1.9 assists per game this season, dealt out 3.3 per game during the trip.

While the final results didn’t work out, it’s good that the team is spreading the ball around more. Ball movement will keep opponents on their toes instead of allowing them to settle in on Lillard and McCollum and bog down the possession. With Lillard back, we’ll see if the sharing continues.