Portland Trail Blazers: 3 takeaways from 7-game road trip

3. The Blazers are truly chairmen of the boards

Already one of the NBA’s top rebounding teams, it was hard to imagine how the Portland Trail Blazers could top themselves. This road trip showed them find a way. Portland entered the All-Star break with the league’s second-highest rebounding percentage. The team has held the top spot in that category since returning.

Specifically, the Blazers were seventh in defensive rebounding percentage and fifth in offensive rebounding percentage before the break. Their rankings since then have improved to first and second, respectively.

Enes Kanter deserves plenty of praise for his contributions to this improvement. He is averaging 13.1 rebounds per 36 minutes early in his Blazers tenure. That’s the type of “double-double” energy Portland needs when Jusuf Nurkic is resting on the bench.

However, this improvement has been a team-wide effort. Maurice Harkless‘ 7.0 boards per game during this trip, Damian Lillard‘s and Jake Layman‘s 5.4 each and C.J. McCollum’s 4.4 a night are all well above their respective season averages.

This aggression on the glass allows the Trail Blazers to pick up second chances on offense and cut opponents’ possessions short on the defensive end. Rebounding is a stat that can be easily overlooked. Doing it as well as Portland has serves them well as the season draws longer and games become grinds.