The Whiteboard: Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins make the Blazers dangerous
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We’re not going to go full Charles Barkley or Channing Frye in our own predictions for the Portland Trail Blazers in the NBA restart, but it has to be said: A fully healthy Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins make Rip City dangerous.
Maybe not “upset the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs” dangerous, but certainly dangerous enough to flag them as the one team L.A. would least enjoy facing in that 8-spot.
That’s not to diminish any of the other competitors for the last playoff spot in the Western Conference, nor should anyone just assume the Blazers are a lock to even snag that final postseason berth. Even if they beat out their competition to finish in ninth-place, they’d still have to win two play-in games to actually make the playoffs.
But there’s a difference between facing inexperienced, younger squads like the Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans or Sacramento Kings in a first-round playoff series compared to a healthy, experienced and physical team like Portland
Thursday’s scrimmage breathed life into that sentiment, because it was hard to ignore how good Nurkic and Collins looked in their limited action and the impact they have on a team that’s clearly missed their presence on both ends of the court.
Yes, it was a small sample size. Yes, the Blazers lost. And yes, it was just a scrimmage.
But with Nurkic playing against another NBA team for the first time in 16 months after spending an entire year rehabbing from a broken leg, those 20 minutes he logged against the Indiana Pacers were a godsend for the Rip City faithful.
The Bosnian Beast finished with 14 points, eight rebounds, one assist and one block on Thursday. He went 6-for-10 from the floor, was active on defense, initiated offense from the post and drew attention down low in a way that Hassan Whiteside just doesn’t. That magnetic pull on the defense makes life easier for shooters like Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum and Carmelo Anthony lurking on the perimeter.
The same could be said of Collins, to a lesser degree. He only finished with six points and four rebounds in 19 minutes during his first NBA contest since October, but he was a tidy 3-of-5 from the floor and chipped in one block, which speaks to the mobility and aggression he brings to the lineup defensively.
Hassan Whiteside missed Thursday’s scrimmage due to left Achilles and lower leg soreness, and according to The Athletic’s Jason Quick, head coach Terry Stotts wants to see how he and Nurkic share the court together. That’s fairly worrisome as far as clogging up Portland’s spacing, not to mention trying to stick with quicker, stretchier bigs on the defensive end. Collins is a much more natural fit alongside Nurk as a 4, but no matter what direction Stotts goes from here, it was immediately clear how much the Blazers missed their two versatile big men.
In his last healthy season in 2018-19, Nurkic put up a career-high 15.6 points, 10.4 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.4 blocks per game. Even without a 3-point shot to speak of, he looked like the third member of Portland’s new Big 3. Collins grew leaps and bounds between his rookie and sophomore seasons, and in his first three games of the 2019-20 campaign, seemed poised to break out as an efficient stretch-4. Like Nurkic, he was robbed of that promise due to injury.
Now, both of these key frontcourt players are back and fully healthy. They’ve got Damian Lillard, one of the most experienced, deadliest, coldest performers in the league in a playoff setting. They’ve got McCollum’s secondary scoring and playmaking, Melo embracing his role and a deeper bench.
There’s no shortchanging it: This version of Portland is an entirely different animal than the underwhelming one we saw for most of the regular season.
It’s still unlikely anyone’s going to knock off the 1-seeded Lakers in the first round of the playoffs, but out of all those teams chasing the 8-seed out West, the Trail Blazers are the one LeBron James and company should want to avoid the most.
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