Portland Trail Blazers: 3 goals for their playoff run
Portland Trail Blazers playoffs goal No. 2: Pressure more turnovers
The Trail Blazers took care of the ball the best in the NBA over the regular season, only committing 11.1 turnovers per game. This is in part due to the fact the Trail Blazers not generating the ball movement as discussed in the last slide.
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However, the Trail Blazers also forced the third-least turnovers in the league during the regular season meaning that they were involved in too many shootouts. While Lillard and McCollum are good, they are going to struggle to win a seven-game series by themselves.
In order to take the pressure off their shooting, the entire team needs to create more turnovers. The Nuggets have too much firepower to allow Nikola Jokic to control their offense. In Game 1, they slowed Jokic down and he only had one assist.
In the second game, Jokic was much more creative and the Nuggets were so much harder to stop. Keeping the ball out of hands is crucial. Jokic only had one turnover but because other players were being asked to make plays they were not used to. This meant the team had 18 turnovers for the game and it was a big reason for the loss in game one.