The Portland Trail Blazers haven’t been a top-10 defensive team since 2017-18. Given their recent acquisitions, here’s why they could be due to return to that stature next season.
Through their recent signings, the Portland Trail Blazers have made their reach for an NBA championship substantially easier. Figuratively, it gets easier because the money they’ve spent on the likes of Robert Covington and Derrick Jones Jr. addresses critical defensive shortcomings from 2019-20.
And then literally, that reach becomes easier because … how could it not by adding two defensive stalwarts with 7-foot-2 and 7-foot wingspans respectively?
As a case in point, only the Golden State Warriors were worse at defending the 3-point line in 2019-20. In counter, the Blazers went out to acquire a player in Derrick Jones Jr. that ranked fourth in the NBA in defending the three point line, allowing shooters to hit on just 27.2 percent of long-range attempts.
Length and athleticism matters in today’s NBA. But beyond that, what about how much creativity this gives the Portland Trail Blazers in terms of toggling through defensive schemes?
Let’s retrace back to a seminal moment that somewhat shaped today’s NBA. Remember that zone defense that stymied LeBron James in the 2011 NBA Finals and put him on more milk cartons than SportsCenter highlight clips?
Rick Carlisle effectively played the role of engineer. But crank your neck and take a glance down the Mavericks’ bench, and you’ll notice a familiar face:
A man by the name of Terry Stotts.
Stotts isn’t as defensively-sound a coach as Carlisle. But his hand in helping Dallas find defensive versatility did earn him a head coaching job just two seasons later.
With arguably the most athletic, versatile defensive roster of his Portland tenure, Stotts is likely somewhere, wondering how he could get the most out of his team’s new physical boosts. More zone could be the answer.
The desire to knock high-powered offenses out of rhythm, even for a few possessions, has led to a slight resurgence in zone defense play. The 2.2 percent usage in 2019-20 was a high-water mark for the NBA since 2011-12’s lockout season.
Portland tinkered with it a bit in spurts, but now that they have the proper players in place, they could be among the bigger beneficiaries of the zone, should they need a quick audible to simply change the flow of a game.
Portland’s use of the zone, like most teams, was matchup-based or situation-based. They used it to contain Ja Morant in the opening bubble game, and showed their ability to cover a specific zone and defend as a team during their Aug. 4 bubble game against Houston, where they trapped James Harden at half-court, forced the pass away, and then effectively rotated to cover Houston’s shooters.
The end result? They held Harden to 23 points on 7-of-17 from the field, and took a must-win 110-102 victory.
They turned to it often, too, in the Lakers-Blazers series in the first round, and it kept them competitive, and it may have worked better, if not for untimely hot streaks from LeBron James and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
Fans view Stotts as stubborn from time-to-time, but it does show somewhat of a willingness to mix it up.
What brought Miami’s zone defense to cult-hero status across NBA discussions was that it had rangy, wiry athletes that allowed it to work well. Their zone, like anything else, was more contingent on effort, teamwork, athleticism than the actual scheme itself.
Imagining situations where the Blazers are running small-ball groups with Collins, Covington, Jones Jr., Trent Jr., and their pick of whatever guard they please could, at the very least, help Portland jump into that middle-echelon of defensive teams.
Length and athleticism at a premium, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see those chops put on display in areas like this. Or this.
In essence, those are two areas that Portland should improve upon immediately. In 2019-20, they ranked 26th league wide in deflections, and struggled to defend from behind the arc.
They have the players capable of covering ground quickly, should they need to shift to zones and traps. Only 79 players had 115 or more deflections last season. Portland just acquired two of them, including the No. 2 player in that standing in Covington.
Pair that side-by-side with their rim protection — an area they were excellent in last season, Lillard’s ascension as a team defender, and CJ McCollum’s self-diagnosed goal of becoming a better defender, and overall continuity, and there’s reason for excitement.
In the meantime, there’s excellent potential for the Portland Trail Blazers to reclaim a spot in the top-10 spot among defenses in 2021-22. But if not, one thing’s for sure: it only goes up from here. And with the wingspans Portland will have on the floor next season, nothing should feel too high.