Can the Lakers match the Blazers’ offense for an entire playoff series?

The Lakers, the top seed in the West, will have their hands full with the hot-shooting Blazers in the first round.

TNT analyst Charles Barkley made a bold prediction that the Portland Trail Blazers will defeat the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs. That prediction doesn’t look quite as bold as it did two weeks ago. The Blazers were the second-best team in the seeding round behind the Phoenix Suns. Their reward was a hard-fought victory over the Memphis Grizzlies in the play-in tournament and a shot at the Lakers.

The key to the Blazers’ 6-2 record was their unstoppable offense. The ball club poured in 122.5 points per 100 possessions in the bubble, the best mark of any team. They scored at least 110 points in every contest, including 140 in their opener against the Grizzlies.

Bubble MVP Damian Lillard led the squad with 37.6 points per game on 49.7 percent shooting (93-of-187), including 43.6 percent (44-of-101) from long range and 88.8 percent (71-of-80) from the foul line. The 6-foot-2 guard has been unconscious the last four games, netting 51, 61, 42 and 31 points, respectively (Part of the reason could be his dispute with Patrick Beverly and Paul George, but that doesn’t excuse the fact the Blazers needed him to produce that many buckets).

The rest of the team followed suit as Lillard’s performance resulted in points totals of 124, 134 in back-to-back games and 126. And they won all four contests.

This is what the Lakers, a championship contender, have to deal with in the first round. Overall, Los Angeles team went 4-4 and locked up the top seed in three games. But it’s the way they went about it that should have Lakers fans be somewhat concerned.

Throughout the eight games, the offense was inconsistent and affected the defense, which had been the Lakers’ strongest asset all season. This major dilemma showed during the three-game skid in which they twice failed to average even 100 points per 100 possesions. To make matters worse, they were a Kyle Kuzma game-winner away from entering the postseason with five consecutive losses.

To be fair, not all of the Lakers’ bubble issues are their fault alone. Seven of their eight games were against playoff teams, including four squads who finished as a top-four seed in their respective conference (Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Clippers and Toronto Raptors).

The Lakers weren’t fully healthy as well. LeBron James dealt with a sore right groin which forced him to sit out versus the Rockets. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (ankle), Alex Caruso (neck) and Anthony Davis (knee) have been dealing with minor injuries and all rested the last game against the Sacramento Kings.

Otherwise, the Lakers didn’t really have reliable offense outside Davis and James. Kuzma was inconsistent as usual. He scored 16 points apiece in the first two games and followed up with nine and 10, respectively. Although he netted 21 against the Rockets and 25 on the Nuggets, James didn’t play in the former and the latter was versus the team’s second unit. Add an 11-point, 3-of-14 performance in a loss to the Pacers as well.

Waiters was steady off the bench in the seeding round: 11.9 points, 42.5 percent shooting (31-of-73) and 87.5 percent (14-of-16) from the free-throw line. The 6-foot-3 shooting guard can be a third option and spark plug for the ball club, but they’ll need much more from the rest of the roster against a fiery Blazers team.

The health of the Lakers’ core will be essential to their offense as well, especially James’s. He missed 17 games with a groin injury last season. Although he has been mostly healthy this year (played 63 of 71 games), it’s not far-fetched to speculate whether that’s a lingering ailment which will affect him for the rest of his playing career.

James’s numbers before and after sitting out the Rockets game are vastly different as well. In the first four contests, he netted 19.3 points on 42 percent shooting (29-of-69), including 27.3 percent (6-of-22) from distance and 68.4 percent (13-of-19) from the charity stripe. In the last three games, James scored 25.6 points on 48.3 percent shooting (28-of-58), including 40.1 percent (9-of-22) from downtown. So the extra rest gave him a boost to finish the schedule.

Davis had an up-and-down seeding round: in three games against the Clippers, Nuggets and Utah Jazz, he combined for 34.3 points and 8.7 rebounds per game, 57.7 percent shooting (30-of-52) and 84.1 percent (37-of-44) from the foul line. In his four other appearances, Davis combined for 12.0 points and 8.5 rebounds per game, 32.5 percent shooting (13-of-40) and 87.5 percent (21-of-24) from the charity stripe.

Despite his rollercoaster numbers, expect him to break out this upcoming series against the Blazers. In three head-to-head matchups this season, Davis averaged 32.0 points on 55.9 percent shooting (33-of-59), including 82.8 percent (24-of-29) from the free-throw line.

The Lakers won’t have to worry about scoring points. Although the Blazers dominated offensively, they allowed 120.4 points per 100 possessions in the seeding round, the third-worst mark of the 22 teams. What the Lakers have to worry about is where the points are coming from outside Davis and James.

Besides Lillard, the Blazers have Carmelo Anthony (15.4 points), CJ McCollum (22.2), Jusuf Nurkic (17.6), Anfernee Simons (8.3), Gary Trent, Jr. (8.9) and Hassan Whiteside (15.5) who can produce points. The Lakers will be relying on the streaky shooting of Danny Green (8.0), Kuzma and Waiters. They will really have to dig in defensively if they want to win this series in less than six games.