NBA Play-in: What you need to know about the Trail Blazers and Grizzlies
Key Question No.1: Can anyone guard Damian Lillard?
Damian Lillard has been and has reminded everyone during this period what a dynamic scorer he is. In four of the eight games alone scored 61 points, 51, 45 and 41 points, and against the Grizzlies in their bubble-opener, he only had 29 points.
Lillard is in his groove and unless Memphis has some kryptonite around, the team’s best chance of stopping him is Melton. During the regular season Melton ranked 25th in defensive win shares among point guards, if Melton takes the primary assignment on Lillard, the Trail Blazers use ball movement to get one of their two star guards open.
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Good rotation defensively from the Grizzlies, especially Morant who stunts at Hezonja then closes out to Dame and Clarke finishing it up with a good contest on CJ. pic.twitter.com/lwvuBXv2VU
— Mo Dakhil (@MoDakhil_NBA) July 31, 2020
As seen here via Mo Dakhil, the Grizzlies switch and rotate well enough to somewhat reduce the improvised offense (note Jaren Jackson Jr. not being on the floor will dramatically reduce the effectiveness of this).
Looking from the Trail Blazers’ perspective, there’s no real answer for CJ McCollum as Morant cannot and should not be expected to be able to guard him. Running Lillard as a decoy while McCollum and Carmelo Anthony score while Jusuf Nurkić can facilitate from the high post and set brick wall screens would be a conundrum for the Grizzlies without Jackson Jr.
The short answer is no, the Grizzlies can’t defend Lillard and if they contest him as much as possible he has 3 other players he can dish too. As seen with his averages Lillard is already at 9.3 assists per game so he could easily have double-digit assists in this play in – and 50+ points.