6 big questions about the Trail Blazers-Thunder matchup

The NBA playoffs are finally here. There are interesting series on both sides of the bracket, but I find the No. 3-No. 6 matchups in each conference to be the most interesting. So we’re going to break down six major questions (three for each team) that will matter in Blazers vs. Thunder (below) and Sixers vs. Nets (click here).

Let’s go.

1. How will Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum deal with OKC’s size and pressure?

Last year, Portland’s guards folded against a New Orleans defense that heavily pressured them at the point of attack. Rajon Rondo and Jrue Holiday played skin-tight coverage on Dame and CJ, and every time either one of them came around a screen (on or off the ball), Anthony Davis or Nikola Mirotic was right there waiting to ramp up the pressure and physicality even more. Lillard and McCollum simply couldn’t turn the corner, couldn’t get into the paint, couldn’t figure out how long to string their dribbles out. (By the time McCollum got going in Game 3, it was too late. The Blazers were done.) That was especially true of Lillard, who shot 35 percent from the field and 30 percent from 3 to go with his four turnovers per game.

If there was one team in the Western Conference playoff bracket who could conceivably replicate the Pelicans’ defensive strategy from last season, it was the Thunder, who have Russell Westbrook, Terrance Ferguson, and Paul George to on the perimeter, and Jerami Grant, Steven Adams, and even Nerlens Noel to ramp up the pressure around screens. The size-length-strength combination of Oklahoma City’s perimeter trio is dangerous, and the size-length-agility combination of the bigs who will be applying additional pressure perhaps even more so.

Lillard has gotten far better this season at manipulating pick-and-roll coverages, and particularly at stringing out his dribble until the exact right moment and at splitting defenders before they can really execute their trap. Both strategies will be necessary against the Thunder, and McCollum will have to execute them as well. Of course, there are two additional issues connect to this …

2. Will Portland’s other guys hit their shots this year?

This is the reason the Pelicans had no qualms about blitzing Lillard and McCollum every time they came around a screen. Moe Harkless, Al-Farouq Aminu, Meyers Leonard, Evan Turner … these guys are not all that threatening as playmakers or shooters. Leonard is the best shooter of the bunch. Turner is the best passer, but he’s far better on the ball than off. Zach Collins has joined this group this year and he probably presents the best combination of the two skills, but he’s in only his second season and he’s not yet aggressive enough with his jumper to really make defenses pay for leaving him alone.

Aminu actually launched 30 triples in last year’s sweep, but Harkless only played two games, Pat Connaughton was 2-of-10 from deep, Evan Turner and Shabazz Napier were a combined 2-of-11, and Collins was 3-of-14 once he got the chance to join the fun.

Simply put, the Blazers cannot and will not advance if they do not get better and more decisive shooting performances from the non-Dame and CJ guys this time around. When the ball is swung around to them on reversals, Harkless and Aminu need to make quick decisions. When they’re in the game, Leonard and Collins have to be willing to let it fly. Especially early in the series, they need to make OKC’s bigs think twice about hanging around on the ball for that extra split-second and affecting Lillard and McCollum’s ability to get into the paint.

3. Can the Blazers get passable defense (and playmaking) out of Enes Kanter?

We all remember what happened the last time Enes Kanter was in the playoffs.

The Westbrook-Adams pick-and-roll and George-Adams pick-and-roll form the basis of the Oklahoma City offense, and if Kanter gets caught in space like this consistently, he just can’t be on the floor. Everyone on both teams knows this is his specific weakness, and the Thunder will surely zero in on it throughout the series. If he can’t hang, then all of a sudden, you’re looking at a whole lot of Collins and Leonard.

That’s why Kanter has to prove valuable on the other end of the floor, and not just as a post-up guy and offensive rebounder. It’s incredibly difficult to beat Adams in the post anyway, and the Thunder did a strong job keeping teams off the offensive glass this year as well. If and when Kanter catches the ball in space, he needs to channel his best Jusuf Nurkic impression. That means coming downhill but keeping his head up for shooters or cutters or executing ball-reversals rather than just looking to plow his way to the rim.

4. Is there any answer for Paul George’s pick-and-roll snakes?

Paul George against the Blazers this season: 38 points, 10.5 rebounds, 5.5 assists per game on a 45-46-85 shooting line. There’s a reason for this, and it comes down to the way George’s preferred method of offensive attack works against the Blazers’ preferred method of guarding pick-and-rolls.

Namely, the Blazers prefer to drop the big man back into the paint and coax ball-handlers into a pocket of space near the elbows while George counteracts that strategy by snaking his way around the screen in order to find himself in even more open space than the Blazers would prefer to give him. George also developed a ridiculously rude counter-move where he catches the defender leaning toward the screen + snake, and crosses back over as quickly as humanly possible, while Adams flips the screen in order to create space so that George can step back into an open 3.

It’s not in Portland’s DNA to suddenly change its pick-and-roll coverages to account for one player, but unless they want it to be in their DNA to get knocked out in the first round again, they’ve got to come up with some way to deal with George snaking the screens that isn’t “Harkless and Aminu defend their butts off.”

5. How does OKC align defensively?

The Blazers’ offense runs through their two star guards, who flow off a series of screens on and off the ball in order to find open looks either off the dribble or on the catch.

When engaged, Westbrook is able to handle guards like Lillard pretty well. The problem is that more often than not, he is not engaged — especially away from the ball. That’s a major problem against Lillard, who does a ton of off-ball damage via flare screens. Might the Thunder want to use Ferguson on him instead? He’s certainly more consistently locked in than Westbrook is, and he has even longer arms than Russ.

That shifts Ferguson off McCollum, but it’s not like that’s an easy hiding place for Westbrook, either. CJ is essentially Dame Lite. Luckily for the Thunder, they also have George, and neither of the Blazers’ bigger wings is really threatening enough to worry about them posing a problem for Westbrook. The Thunder can easily stash him on Harkless more often than not. Harkless isn’t really going to take Russ down into the post anyway, but Westbrook is strong enough to handle himself there in the event he does. The one area you’d really have to worry about him is with the off-ball cuts, since Westbrook tends to space out when he’s away from the ball.

His getting beaten a few times by Harkless is far preferable, though, to his getting repeatedly beaten by Lillard and/or McCollum. Billy Donovan may not want to cross-match like this for the entire series, but he probably should.

6. Will Westbrook be Westbrook or will he beat Westbrook?

At his best, Westbrook is capable of single-handedly winning any game or series. At his worst, he’s capable of losing one. He’s obviously at or near his best far more often than he is at or near his worst, but he does tend to swing more violently from one side of the pendulum to the other when he gets into the playoffs. His best games are even better than usual and his worst games are even worse. That’s not necessarily a great situation to be in when you’re in the midst of one of those bad games, and the Thunder need Westbrook to not teeter off of that knife’s edge he’s almost always hanging on.