The NBA has officially released a tentative 2020-21 schedule for the Portland Trail Blazers. What are some of the things worth most paying attention to?
Mark down Dec. 4 as both a celebration for the literal “blazers” and the basketball Blazers, too. The Portland Trail Blazers released their tentative schedule for the first half of the 2020-21 season, headlined by an Opening Day tilt against the Utah Jazz on Dec. 23.
Let's do this! #RipCity pic.twitter.com/7NzKRYNrUj
— Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) December 4, 2020
This portion only includes the first 37 games of the season, but 22 of those games will be against Western Conference foes, many of which are projected to be around the same ballpark as Portland.
More observations and thoughts are sure to surface. But in the meantime, here are a few thoughts that stand out immediately.
A hot start could be there for the taking:
At this point, it’s been analytically proven that roster continuity doesn’t necessarily correlate to a hot start to a season. But as the Portland Trail Blazers kickstart the 2020-21 campaign, they could be in position to take advantage of opposing teams’ new personnel and rotation configurations.
Per NBA.com’s John Schuhmann, the Portland Trail Blazers ranked No. 17 in the NBA in terms of how many players they’re bringing back from the previous season. On the opening portions of their schedule, a healthy dose of those teams are welcoming in far more personnel, especially among guys expected to play heavy minutes.
In the Blazers’ second home game, they meet a Houston Rockets team that recently shipped away All-Star point guard Russell Westbrook, and will instead lock horns with John Wall, who, though he remains a star until proven otherwise, hasn’t played since Dec. 26, 2018. Harden and new head coach Stephen Silas reportedly haven’t spoken face-to-face either.
You get the drift here. The Blazers’ away-and-away series against the Warriors to open the New Year’s comes to mind as well. There’s so much talent on that Golden State team … but arguably just as much uncertainty. How does Stephen Curry respond as the lone star, and in returning as (likely) a dominant on-ball threat?
By no stretch can we say that the Blazers have an easy schedule. But if this were professional wrestling, they’d have cashed in the “Money in the Bank,” prepared to face a wounded opponent.
It’s a relatively soft schedule in certain seams. Here’s how it looks heading into mid-February, when Portland has historically turned it up a notch:
December: vs. UTA, vs. HOU, at LAL, at LAC
January: at GSW, at GSW, vs. CHI, vs. MIN, at SAC, vs. TOR, at SAC, vs. IND, vs. ATL, vs. SAS, vs. MEM, vs. MEM, vs. NYK, vs. OKC, at HOU, at CHI
February: at MIL, at PHI, at NYK, at CHA, vs. ORL, vs. PHI, vs. CLE, at DAL (end of mid-February).
Cards played right, Portland could eke 20 wins out of that opening frame. It would be the atypical of them, though. Within that, we have another key storyline. (Also, it deserves to be said: no primetime games until February?)
The seven straight home games could be make-or-break:
It’s befitting for such a crazy year to have the Trail Blazers’ schedule include a seven-game home stretch from late-January and into early-February. And given the teams on that schedule, those seven games could be crucial for the Blazers’ seeding.
Recall this: the official Play-In rules for 2020-21 will put both the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds in precarious position, which means the race for the No. 6 seeds and higher could be a thrill.
Assuming the Blazers follow their normal code, they’ll either be playing catch-up as usual, or this stretch of home games — against the Pacers, Hawks, Spurs, Grizzlies, Grizzlies, Knicks and Thunder — could give them a chance to do something they’ve rarely been able to do: pad their seeding.
If they don’t, here’s why it could be rough.
The unreleased second half projects to be deadly:
Here, we can see the Blazers’ first 37 games of the schedule. A mere 16 of those will be against teams that made the 2020 Playoffs — a number that becomes even less intimidating when you remember that Oklahoma City worsened this year, and there’s also the likes of Orlando and Indiana.
That leaves one to guess that when the second half portion comes out, the competition will be much more stiff. That could mean additional meetings with the Lakers, Nuggets, and Clippers, or even teams they could be jousting for positioning with, such as the Suns, Mavericks, or Jazz.
Needless to say, the Blazers had better take advantage of what comes early. Among the rest, here are some notes via Positive Residual:
The Portland Trail Blazers will have:
— seven back-to-backs
— four rest disadvantage games
And, some primetime games to keep note of: Feb. 11 vs. 76ers (TNT), Feb. 23 at DEN (TNT), Feb. 26 at LAL (ESPN), Mar. 3 vs. GSW (TNT)