The Mess in the West: Portland Trail Blazers

A few weeks ago, we used this space to begin an examination of what I referred to at the time as the most interesting group of teams in the league. At the time, there were five Western Conference teams separated in the standings by a total of three games, and that group of teams was all at least three games behind the fourth-place Minnesota Timberwolves and four games ahead of the 10th-place Utah Jazz. The plan was to dig into what each of the five teams does and does not do well over the course of a couple weeks during the lead-up to the trade deadline.

After the first two installments on the Thunder (link) and Nuggets (link), however, the league decided to blow those plans to smithereens. The Pelicans were the next team up, but DeMarcus Cousins tore his Achilles, so it seemed impossible to write about what the team does and does not do well, given that it was about to dramatically change for the rest of the year. The Clippers were up after that, but then they went and traded Blake Griffin to the Pistons. Then Kristaps Porzingis tore his ACL, then we had the trade deadline, and then we had the All-Star break. So we pushed things back.

A few weeks later, the Jazz have somehow reeled off 11 straight wins and now there are six Western Conference teams grouped within 2.5 games of each other in the standings and fighting it out for four playoff spots. They’re all at least two games behind the Wolves and Spurs, and at least 6.5 games ahead of the Lakers. It seems extraordinarily likely that four of these teams will make the postseason and two will be stuck at home.

We’ve already taken extended looks at what the Thunder and Nuggets do and do not do well, so we’re going to use this week to dig into the Blazers, Pelicans, Clippers, and Jazz. We’ll start in Portland.

Here’s the thing about identifying what the Blazers do well: that has changed dramatically as the season has gone along. Take a long at their offensive and defensive ratings by month, per NBA.com.

As you can see, the Blazers were defending extremely well early in the season. They had the NBA’s seventh-best defense in October and third-best defense in November. In the meantime, they were struggling to score consistently despite employing one of the NBA’s best scoring backcourts in Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum. It was so strange that we felt compelled to dig into exactly what the heck was going on.

Of course, things have undergone a dramatic shift. Portland’s defense has gotten worse with each passing month. The Blazers ranked 15th in defensive rating in December and 22nd in both January and February. Their offense, meanwhile, has perked up a bit. It’s gone from ranking 26th and 27th in November and December to third in January and 18th in February.

Which version of the team is the “real” Blazers? It’s tough to say. Based on both personnel and history, I’m inclined to believe the team’s offense is better than its defense. With a largely similar roster, the Blazers ranked 11th in offense and 21st in defense last season, and seventh in offense and 20th in defense the year before. They’re now up to 14th overall in points per possession and down to 11th in defense, and I would imagine that the team will continue trending in the direction it’s been trending of late. It was strange when they began the season shutting teams down defensively while struggling to put up points, and they seem to have undergone a regression to the team-wide mean over the last couple months. It makes sense.

Over the last month and a half, Portland’s offense has improved for several reasons. First, they’ve altered their shot distribution, shifting a bunch of shots from the mid-range to beyond the arc.

They have seen a corresponding increase in effective field goal percentage (49.6 to 53.7 percent), much of it driven by the fact that those 3s are not just 3s — but open 3s. Through December, the Blazers attempted 24.7 3s per game, 26th in the NBA. Of those 24.7 3s, 20.3 were described by NBA.com as “open” or “wide-open,” meaning the closest defender to the shooter was at least four feet away at the time of release. Since the calendar flipped to 2018, Portland has attempted 30.2 3s per game, 12th in the NBA during that time period. Not only that, but they’ve attempted 25 open or wide-open 3s a night. They’ve shot slightly better on those open and wide-open attempts, which, coupled with the dramatic increase volume, has driven almost all of the Blazers’ offensive bump. (The other driver has been a dip in turnover rate that has offset a similar-sized drop in foul-drawing.)

Unsurprisingly, they have experienced similar drop-offs on the other end of the floor. Blazers opponents have only taken 0.8 more “wide-open” (closest defender 6+ feet away) 3s per game since Jan. 1, but they have made 42.9 percent of those attempts compared to 37.5 percent through Dec. 31. Opponents connected on “open” (closest defender within 4-6 feet) 3s (35.0 to 34.3 percent) at a similar rate before and after the new year, but they have attempted two more such shots per game since Jan. 1. Those two developments alone would be enough to send any defense sinking toward the bottom of the league, but those are not the only areas where Portland has declined.

They have allowed more offensive rebounds, dropping from fifth in defensive rebound rate through December to 23rd in the new year. As a result, opponents are keeping more possessions alive. Coupled with a decrease in an already very low opponent’s turnover rate (13.4 to 11.8 percent), the increase in offensive rebounding has allowed Blazer opponents far more chances to score than they were getting early in the season. More chances to score plus better opponent shooting — especially from the outside — will always, always, always result in a poorer defensive performance.

Next: Mario Hezonja, the curse of bravado and the gift of opportunity

It’s worth wondering whether the Blazers can reverse these trends and stabilize their defense, but based on their personnel and history, it doesn’t seem likely. Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum are one of the best scoring duos in the league, but they both lack the defensive prowess to keep guards from probing the lane. That would normally force aggressive help from elsewhere on the floor, but the Blazers employ a largely conservative defensive scheme that instead grants those probers open looks. And if help does come, then opponents can make them pay by shooting over their shorter perimeter players. We’ve seen this play out over the last couple years, and it’s not at all surprising that it has begun to play out again. Portland has the horses to outscore opponents more nights than not, and the Blazers will have to hope they can do so often enough to hold off their challengers in the bottom half of the West.