After yesterday’s victory against the Sacramento Kings, your Portland Trail Blazers now stand at 31-11 on the season, good for second in the Western Conference. As a fan of the Trail Blazers, there isn’t much more you could ask for – the offense is firing like always, the defense has turned stout, the bench is contributing, and the team is winning the division by a full ten games over the Thunder.
But beneath the shiny veneer, there is some cause for concern bubbling. Namely, the Trail Blazers’ performance against other elite Western Conference teams has been lacking. Consider this: Of their 11 losses so far this season, a full seven of them have come against teams that would currently make the Western Conference playoffs (two losses to the Clippers, two to the Grizzlies, one to the Warriors, one to the Rockets, and one to the Spurs).
Dec 31, 2014; San Antonio, TX, USA; San Antonio Spurs point guard
Tony Parker(9) watches from the bench during the second half against the New Orleans Pelicans at AT&T Center. The Spurs won 95-93 in overtime. Mandatory Credit: Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports
That, in itself, isn’t much of a shocker – you lose some games against good teams, water is wet, etc. Consider further, though, that against the other seven top teams in the West, the Trail Blazers have only won three times (against the Mavericks once and the Spurs twice). Additionally, the first time the Trail Blazers beat the Spurs, the Spurs were without Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, Tiago Splitter, and Manu Ginobili, and the second time they were without Parker and Kawhi Leonard.
If you’re keeping track, that puts the Trail Blazers at 3-7 against the best of the West, with two of those three wins coming against depleted Spurs squads. Beating teams you are supposed to beat is great. That’s the first mark of a team becoming elite, and it is what gets you into the playoffs with home court advantage.
But, the Trail Blazers are no longer satisfied with getting into the playoffs – they want to go deep into the playoffs. The hard truth is that the teams they have been losing to are exactly the teams that they need to be able to beat to do this.
It’s not all doom and gloom; far from it, in fact. I mentioned earlier that in two of the Spurs wins, the Spurs were depleted, and truthfully it has been oftentimes the same for the Trail Blazers. Since Robin Lopez fractured his hand on December 15th, the Trail Blazers have experienced four of the aforementioned seven losses. In addition to missing Lopez, the Trail Blazers were also without LaMarcus Aldridge for the Rockets game. Every team experiences injuries, but it’s foolish to think that they don’t directly impact the wins and loss columns.
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Additionally, the early-season loss against the Warriors is worth mentioning. There are no could-haves, should-haves, or excuses in professional sports, but it’s fair to say that the Trail Blazers had a great chance to win the game. They were leading by one and had the ball with 14 seconds left, before losing control of the game with costly turnovers. Imagine the Trail Blazers win that game, and that with a healthy Lopez, two of the team’s recent losses are instead wins. Hypotheticals are always dangerous, but it’s not a stretch to say that instead of 3-7, the Trail Blazers could be 6-4 against the other top teams in the West.
While the West has been a rough go, the Trail Blazers have racked up convincing wins against the Cavaliers and Bulls, and gutted out a come from behind victory against the Raptors from the East. Unfortunately, the win against the Bulls was when they were without Derrick Rose and Pau Gasol, and when the Bulls were at full strength, they won by nine. The Trail Blazers also got thoroughly worked by the Hawks at home, when the Hawks out-hustled, outworked, and simply outplayed the Trail Blazers.
A win against an Eastern Conference bottom feeder matters just as much as a win against a playoff bound Western Conference team when the season ends. They each add one to that win column, which is ultimately all that matters when playoff seeding comes around. The Trail Blazers have generally been winning against the teams they should beat, and again, this is not a feat to be undersold. Winning is hard, and every win matters.
With that being said, if the Trail Blazers want to push themselves into the truly upper echelon of teams, they need to start winning more consistently against other good teams. These are the teams they will face in the playoffs, and they need to prove to themselves and everyone else that they can do it.