Portland Trail Blazers: Phoenix Suns Deandre Ayton exposes Jusuf Nurkic
By Andy Quach
The Portland Trail Blazers could support their interior defense by upgrading their perimeter defense
A band-aid for the Blazers to patch up their interior defensive deficiencies would be by making it their only hole on defense. If they become a stout defense on the perimeter, Nurkic could focus all his efforts on his matchup and spend less time and energy on closing off driving lanes.
While it’s not a perfect fix, or an easy one, it still is an attainable goal. Portland does have a few strong perimeter defenders on the squad. Norman Powell, Robert Covington, Derrick Jones Jr., and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson are all plus defenders, but the Blazers rarely deploy more than two of them at a time.
Often, two or more of the Blazers weak defenders, such as Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, Anfernee Simons, and Carmelo Anthony, are on the court at all times. This leaves too many holes for Nurkic to cover and suitably check his own man.
Through either rotation changes or roster adjustments, Portland could mitigate the amount of driving lanes that Nurk would have to worry about.
Upgrading from DJJ and RHJ would help as both players receive scarce floor time due to their weaknesses on the offensive end.
There are plenty of options for the Blazers to possibly add in free agency, even on veteran minimum contracts.
- Jeff Green
- Nicolas Batum
- Solomon Hill
- Torrey Craig
- Semi Ojeleye
- Austin Rivers
- Matthew Dellavedova
- Bruce Brown
- Kendrick Nunn
All of these players are entering free agency this summer, made less than $3 million last season, and are above average defenders. Adding just two of these options on veteran minimum contracts could completely upgrade Portland’s defensive capabilities and minimize the number of holes that Nurk has to cover for each and every game.