The Trail Blazers have no shortage of veteran talent on the roster that’s accustomed to the brighter lights of the playoffs. And yet, a player who up until tonight had not played a minute of playoff basketball came to leave it all on the floor. That player was none other than Scoot Henderson.
Portland entered the Play-In Tournament sporting the number two defense in the entire NBA. And truth be told, the Blazers have no shortage of excellent defenders—Clingan, Camara, and Holiday are often cited as the nexus of this arrangement. In the shadows, Scoot has been quietly building his defensive repertoire since coming back from his hamstring tear sustained in the offseason.
Scoot Henderson has redefined his role in Portland
The work he’s put in has grown proportionately with his foul rate; often scaling to the skill level of the player he’s guarding. His man defense in the play-in game was adequate; Jalen Green was his assignment and scored in bunches and seemingly couldn’t miss. Green would have hit those shots against almost anyone because the Suns worked tirelessly to get him open, and the remaining attempts were high-arcing fadeaways that would have sailed over almost anyone.
Scoot’s active hands kept him on the floor—after picking up two quick fouls, Scoot came in and applied even-handed pressure to the Suns’ offense and generated some hasty turnovers. When a team likes to run as much as Portland, that translates into some momentum-stifling offense.Â
It was Scoot’s absence that contributed to the Suns going on a 24-4 run early in the 4th quarter that made the game much closer than the prior minutes suggested, alongside a smattering of turnovers that have been a perpetual thorn in the Blazers’ side all season long.Â
Coach Splitter made an adjustment to the lineup after Jalen Green torched Henderson one too many times, perhaps not realizing that Phoenix was running play after play to get him open. With Scoot on the bench, Green hit shot after shot over anyone who stepped up, including Donovan Clingan.Â
While Scoot only played 17 minutes in the win, his impact was felt in those minutes; Henderson generated two steals and one block in that frame with a +8 in a game the Blazers squeaked out by four.
Scoot Henderson had a lot going for him heading into the 2023 draft, with professional and amateur scouts alike lauding his offensive prowess and downhill style. Those same scouts had equally opposite praise for his defense and rightfully so; Scoot had the worst defensive rating of any lottery pick by a wide margin—122.1 with the next-worst of 106.2 belonging to Jett Howard.Â
That aspect of Henderson’s game has certainly pivoted into the positive, and Scoot has one more year left on his contract to prove that his offensive game can catch up and pay dividends with a lucrative extension next year.
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