The Portland Trail Blazers have fallen six spots in the latest NBA Power Rankings and for good reason.
In John Schuhmann’s NBA Power Rankings for week 8, the Portland Trail Blazers have fallen to 13th after placing seventh the previous week. Two weeks ago, when Portland was sitting pretty at 10-3, they claimed second. Since then, they’ve begun a rapid descent, dropping seven of their last 10 and suffering some of their worst losses of the season which included a 43-point disaster in Milwaukee.
Defense has been a major problem for these Trail Blazers recently. As Schuhmann points out, the team holds the worst defensive rating in the league over their disappointing 10-game stretch, giving up 118.2 points per 100 possessions.
There are two primary concerns with Portland’s defense.
First, they’re getting absolutely torched from three. Over these last three weeks, they’re giving up the worst opponent field goal percentage from beyond the arc (43.2%). Opponents are shooting 7.4 percentage points better than average from deep when they play the Blazers. To put that into perspective, the second-worst team, the Indiana Pacers, are allowing their opponents to shoot only 3.5 percentage points better.
Second, there just doesn’t seem to be a lot of fight from them on that side of the ball. The lack of effort was perhaps most apparent in their most recent loss to the San Antonio Spurs.
During the first three minutes of that game, guys like Al-Farouq Aminu and Maurice Harkless crowded around ball handlers, poking at and scraping for the ball, creating a few quick turnovers that led to easy baskets.
Afterward, though, the team seemed more interested in trying to outscore the Spurs than playing altogether better basketball. The juxtaposition was striking. While Portland certainly has the firepower to compete in shootouts, they’ll have a tough time beating anyone if they allow them to shoot 60.2% from the field and 73.3% from deep.
That’s a recipe for losing basketball. And lose the Blazers have.
While you can point to the heartbreaking one-point loss to the Denver Nuggets to supply hope, their few wins during this stretch haven’t been all that convincing. Schuhmann writes:
"“The Denver loss was one of only two in the 3-7 stretch that was within five points in the last five minutes and they needed 41 points from Damian Lillard to edge the Magic (who were without Aaron Gordon) on Wednesday.”"
While Nikola Vucevic has balled out this season, the Orlando Magic are generally not a good team. Barely edging them out on the back of a record-breaking Damian Lillard performance from deep should not be a point of pride. Their other two wins came against a discombobulated Washington Wizards team and a then-short-circuiting Boston Celtics group (which almost came back to beat them after Portland went up by 54-37 at halftime).
For the Blazers to rekindle their early season success, something needs to change on the defensive end. They cannot continue getting behind big early, and fans can only handle so many more high-powered first halves being squandered down the stretch.
Let’s hope Portland can come out with and sustain the energy they showed early against San Antonio when they take on Dallas Mavericks on December 4.