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How the Portland Trail Blazers can improve their offense next season

By Hassan Ladiwala

Jun 1, 2021; Denver, Colorado, USA; Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard (0) leaves the court after a double overtime loss to Denver Nuggets during game five in the first round of the 2021 NBA Playoffs. at Ball Arena. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 1, 2021; Denver, Colorado, USA; Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard (0) leaves the court after a double overtime loss to Denver Nuggets during game five in the first round of the 2021 NBA Playoffs. at Ball Arena. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports /
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Paul Millsap, Portland Trail Blazers, Denver Nuggets, Damian Lillard
Paul Millsap, Portland Trail Blazers, Denver Nuggets, Damian Lillard (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images) /

Off-ball cuts are one of the most efficient looks an NBA offense can get

Back to the chart on the first slide. If you look at the frequency with which the Blazers ran “cut” plays (5.8 percent, 22nd in the league) and the efficiency of those plays (1.21 PPP, 26th in the league), you might think that since the Blazers weren’t as efficient as the rest of the league on these plays, they decided to run them at a lower frequency. However, relative to the other play-types, “cut” plays earned the Blazers significantly more PPP. If we look at how the Blazers have utilized cut plays in their offense over the past six years, we see a spike in usage during the season that they made the conference finals, followed by a significant drop-off over the last two seasons.

If you’re wondering who that smart team was that was utilizing these high efficiency cuts more often than any other team between 2017-2019, it’s the Golden State Warriors whose sweet-shooting trio of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant scared teams so much with their shooting ability I imagine, that when combined with high-IQ role players and a 5-out offense, they were able to open up all the space in the world for easy off-ball cuts to the hoop.

I found Portland’s underutilization of these two plays very interesting, especially for an isolation and pick-and-roll centric offense like Portland’s that should in theory draw multiple defenders’ attention towards the ball-handler and away from their man, therefore giving way for lots of off-ball cuts or spot-up shooting opportunities. If cutting was difficult because of a big man (Jusuf Nurkic, Enes Kanter or Harry Giles) hanging around the basket along with his defender, the team should at least get spot-up opportunity after the ball-handler beats his man and draws help. So, what’s going on?

The point I’m trying to get at here is not that the Blazers need to run more spot-up and cut plays to be a successful offense. The Blazers have proved as much, finishing third and second in offensive net rating in the 2019-20 and 2020-2021 regular seasons, respectively. The point lies in the difference between what comes before a spot up/cut shot attempt and what comes before an isolation/PnR ball-handler shot attempt. A pass vs. a dribble.