Damian Lillard gets his groove back as Portland Trail Blazers crush Lakers

The Portland Trail Blazers have struggled against the 2-3 zone

The Indiana Pacers were able to deploy a 2-3 zone against the Blazers to moderate success. What’s troublesome was that the Lakers were also able to do it in the game immediately after.

Of course, once Damian Lillard returns to his usual unearthly form, teams will have a tough time deciding to zone up against one of the greatest shooters in NBA history — unless he forces them into a box-and-one.

So far this season, though, two teams have been able to play a middle school defense against what was projected to be one of the best offenses in the league.

The 2-3 zone does mitigate much of the off-ball movement that Portland is using on offense, but should be extremely susceptible to dribble penetration, dump-offs, and kick-out 3-pointers.

The problem thus far is that Portland hasn’t been able to collapse the defense from the perimeter, nor have they tried to enter the ball into the high-post. The Blazers have three above-average passing big men in Jusuf Nurkic, Cody Zeller, and Larry Nance Jr., which gives them an advantage against these zones. They just haven’t actively used that edge, which boils down to a missed opportunity from Head Coach Chauncey Billups.

Surrounding the perimeter with shooters and having one of their passing bigs make a play from the foul line would quickly punish any defense attempting to run a 2-3 zone against the Blazers.

While the Blazers were able to light it up by getting stops and forcing the Lakers back into a man defense in transition, the few possessions where Los Angeles was able to set up in a zone were not pretty for Portland.

Hopefully, we’ll see a systematic answer to this problem soon.