The Portland Trail Blazers got a wake-up call over the last week, losing three straight games on the road before coming home to a 109-106 defeat at the hands of the lowly Orlando Magic on Tuesday night. With a 19-21 record, the Blazers now stand with the also-rans in the competitive NBA Western Conference. With a few more losses, they could lie among the lottery hopefuls casting their wishes on the wind for ping-pong balls in May. This was not where they expected to be 40 games into the season.
After the loss to the Magic, Head Coach Chauncey Billups said he “couldn’t pinpoint” what was wrong with the team during their current slump. In a two-day series, we’re going to look at some of the strong possibilities.
We’ll start with the most obvious. The Blazers have spent the last month dealing with critical injuries to the middle portion of their rotation. The five Portland starters have remained (mostly) intact, so the bench absences haven’t gotten much press. But they’ve hobbled the Blazers in important ways, causing a cascade that’s been hard to see happening, but obvious in effect.
Starting the season, the Blazers knew that defense would be dicey among three of their starters: Damian Lillard, Anfernee Simons, and Jusuf Nurkic. Simons was a wildcard hopeful, younger and more athletic than former Blazers shooting guard CJ McCollum. Nurkic shows flashes of defensive prowess if kept in his wheelhouse. Together, though, the trio made a spotty group.
Portland compensated for the ambiguity by building a series of defensive vertebrae down the middle of the roster. It started with forwards Jerami Grant and Josh Hart, then continued right through the upper bench with forward Justise Winslow, guard Gary Payton II, and forward Nassir Little. In an ideal world, Nurkic, Simons, and Lillard would flex their offensive muscle while the forward and wing corps provided defensive backbone.
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