Portland Trail Blazers
Current Record: 13-10
Standings: 3rd in Division, 6th in Conference
The top three teams in the Northwest Division – the Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves and Portland Trail Blazers are all right with one another. Denver has a slight edge at 13-9 whereas Minnesota and Portland are both 13-10 but Minnesota holds the tiebreaker with a slight edge in divisional play.
Therefore, all three of these squads have been relatively close to the same level and any of them could flip-flop their positions in the standings quite quickly. In fact, that’s exactly what happened Saturday night as Denver defeated the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers fell to the New Orleans Pelicans causing Denver to rise to the top of the division and Portland to fall to third.
However, Saturday’s loss aside, I’ve been impressed with the Portland Trail Blazers. Several people had written them off as likely having a lackluster year this season and many had them finishing outside of the playoff picture. I was actually quite high on the Blazers even heading into this season as I was excited to see what they could do with a full 82-game slate with Jusuf Nurkic in action, and despite their recent slip, they haven’t disappointed up to this point.
But it should be noted that their schedule hasn’t exactly been all that daunting to start out the year and while it can’t hold a candle to Utah’s brutal December, the next month is going to be significantly harder for the Blazers. The way they perform over the course of the next 30 days or so could very well give us a better idea of how good or bad this Portland team truly is.
Although their record indicates that they’ve been pretty solid up to this point, there’s a few attributes about them that surprise me. First of all, while both Damian Lillard and C.J McCollum are playing well, Lillard’s shooting percentages are pretty lackluster – 42.0 FG% and 32.9 3PT%. Meanwhile, McCollum is ripping the nets from deep at 47.2 percent.
Even more odd is that while last year Portland wasn’t exactly a defensive force but they were solid offensively, this year they’re just 24th in points per game but third in the league in opponent points allowed per game. This switch to a more defensive identity is certainly helpful, but they’d probably like to get their offense up to snuff as well. They’ll need Lillard to get a little more efficient if they hope to accomplish that.
What’s more disheartening than Lillard’s shooting struggles though has been Nurkic’s abysmal field goal percentage, especially for a big man. He’s currently converting on just 46 percent of his attempts. There’s no doubting that the Bosnian Beast helps improve Portland’s defense, but his teammates will need to look to get him more involved and better looks if their offense is going to be able to keep pace in the West.
I could see Portland coming down to earth somewhat in a tough month of December, but I believed in them coming into this season and I still believe in them. I’m still convinced the Blazers are a playoff-caliber team. They’ve showed as much so far and I only expect them to keep it up.