Neil Olshey: Blazers need to “tighten some things up” for playoff basketball

At the Portland Trail Blazers media day, Neil Olshey spoke about what the team needs to do for this year’s postseason.

Portland Trail Blazers GM Neil Olshey does not want the NBA to forget that his team was one of the best in the regular season last year. During his Media Day press conference, he spoke about what the Blazers need to do this upcoming season to make a run in the playoffs.

He was proud of his team for finishing third in the West, despite being swept out of the first round by the New Orleans Pelicans. Regarding the series, he said: “We’ve just got to tighten some things up when it comes to playoff basketball.”

By tightening up, he meant he wanted the Blazers to create a bigger margin for error this year when headed into the postseason. And to increase this margin, he said that the team wanted to minimize the effect injuries have on their roster and to maximize the team’s offense.

Injury effects:

Olshey harped on Maurice Harkless’s knee injury this past season.

Harkless had suffered an injury in late March and missed the first game of the Blazers’ first round series. He stated that Harkless strongly impacts the teams’ offensive and defensive ratings, and that he held one of the best field goal percentages in the league.

Having to implement him back into games 2 and 3, Olshey said, “put a lot of pressure on [Damian Lillard], CJ [McCollum], and [Jusuf Nurkic].”

He said losing key guys like Harkless, Al-Farouq Aminu, and Evan Turner play a more critical part in the Blazers success than a lot of people realize.

Olshey appeared to view these names as major impact players who, when gone, disrupt the team’s flow and place increased responsibility on their three best players. This is not to say these stars cannot handle the higher pressure – Olshey mentioned several times that three of the four games in the series were one possession games in the final two minutes – but the loss of these key contributors significantly lowered Portland’s ceiling.

Offense over defense this year

Olshey also talked about how the team may have been too focused on defense last season. While the hard work paid off, as the Blazers ranked 8th in defensive rating, he felt a higher-powered offense would take a lot of pressure off the teams’ best players – especially if they face injury concerns like they did at the end of last year.

The 2017-18 Blazers were the league’s 16th ranked offense. This year’s version is committed to spacing the floor, opening up the court for Dame and CJ on the perimeter and for Nurkic in the post.

When asked how the team’s desire to increase their margin for error affected their personnel decisions, Olshey replied: “Everyone we added is a big-time shooter.”

He is referring mostly to the additions of Nik Stauskas and Seth Curry, 40.4 and 42.5 percent three-point shooters in their most recent seasons. He hopes the Blazers can use these players in versatile lineups to increase the output of their three best players and lower the pressure they may feel when playoff defenses begin tightening up on them.

If they team had these knockdown shooters last year, perhaps the Blazers could’ve taken more advantage of the Pelicans all-in effort to take the ball out of Lillard’s hands by punishing them with long bombs.

Overall optimism

While the first round sweep certainly soured the Blazers for many fans, Olshey is unconcerned with the disappointing result and more focused on the impressive journey the team went on throughout the season.

He said: “When you look at [the year], do you look at six months or four games?”

However, he also emphasized that this year the Blazers want to become a “factor” in the playoffs. This should come as no surprise as the team has faced two straight first round sweeps.

Although the playoff tribulations may weigh heavily on the expectations for the team this year, Olshey was optimistic about how Portland will perform:

“We’re not going to lose sight of the fact we’re returning as one of the best teams in the conference.”

So long as the Blazers remain consistent this season and truly do increase their margin for error, we could see them make some noise when April rolls around.