TUALATIN, Ore. — The Portland Trail Blazers will cross the halfway point in their season after Wednesday’s home game against the Utah Jazz.
A win for the Blazers would secure a split of the season series between the two teams and inch them slightly closer in the race for the 8th seed in the West, where they currently trail by 2.5 games.
Before the season, analysis about the team ended up coming back to the same question: just what does this team have other than Damian Lillard?
CJ McCollum has answered that so emphatically, it’s barely a story anymore.
McCollum is a leading candidate for the NBA’s Most Improved Player, averaging nearly 21 points per game, 4.4 assists and a career-best turnover percentage.
Allen Crabbe has impressed as well, a player that head coach Terry Stotts often leans on to finish games.
Who has Lillard learned the most about in the first half of the season?
“Mason Plumlee,” Lillard said without hesitation. “Not just his ability to rebound and ability to pass the ball and handling the ball, I was surprised by that. I was surprised he could do a lot of those things.”
Lillard continued: “The competitor he is, I had no idea. He competes. He’s selfless. He’s gotten into at least five scuffles out there where he’s having a run in with somebody. And I didn’t think he would back down but I mean, he’s fearless.”
Lillard said that he started to see Plumlee’s fire in practices, but moments in the heat of competition, like his confrontation in November with Chicago’s Jimmy Butler, reinforced what he saw.
“He showed me something,” Lillard said. “Because Mase don’t walk around with his chest out trying to act tough. But when it presented itself it was like, ‘What’s up? What you want do?’ That’s what you want to see from somebody that’s on your team.”
The Blazers have an argument that their record should be better.
Basketball-Reference.com’s “expected win-loss” record gives the Blazers two more wins on the year.
Defensively, is ultimately where their future will be decided.
They are currently one of the league’s worst, ranked 26th in defensive rating, which makes one think they’re exactly where they should be.
Throughout it all, Lillard believes they’ve been able to keep an even-keel mentally. And while that is great, the mentality hasn’t solidified their defense.
But perhaps the mentality is key to consistency down the line.
Experience and chemistry are important markers for good defense, both usually take time.
In the pick and roll, NBA.com ranks the Blazers last in points per possession by ball-handlers and are 24th in the league in points scored per possession by the roll man.
“I think the thing for us it to understand that when we defend for four quarters, that gives us a chance to win games,” Lillard said. “As hard as it is to do it for one full game, it’s hard to have a stretch and do it every game is even harder. That’s the point where we got to get to.”
When Stotts and Lillard were beginning their Blazers tenures, they were part of a group who jumped from 26th to top-ten defensively. But that group underwent a philosophical change and this group’s core players are much younger.
“You look at our team and the number of new players we have the number of young players we have, it’s going to take longer,” Stotts said. “It’s just a longer process.”
“It is a process. It’s not (instant),” Lillard said. “We’ll stick with it and keep getting better at locking in on scouting reports, understanding what teams like to do, what type of sets like they like to get to.”
The Blazers can improve offensively, especially with turnovers, but defensively is where they have more room to grow.
The good news is they have 41 more games left to try and do that.
