Buying or Selling Portland Trail Blazers' 8-Game Win Streak?
The Portland Trail Blazers have been here before, riding an extensive winning streak, staking claim in the Western Conference's championship race, establishing themselves as a premier, early-season powerhouse.
It was only last year, in fact, that they won 12 of their first 14 tilts as part of an 11-game win streak. This time around they find themselves with a similar record at 11-3, playing through an impressive eight-game tear.
Is this early display of supremacy more than impressive, though? Is it, perhaps, convincing—something to be bought at face value as a preview of what will follow? Or is it more convenient than anything, the offshoot of favorable, yet temporary, circumstances?
Last year's Blazers came crashing back down to Earth, winning a stellar 54 games that, admittedly, didn't compare to their blistering beginning. This team could be different.
The Streak
Six of the Blazers' last eight victories have come against sub.-500 teams. One of their other two wins came against a shorthanded Chicago Bulls contingent that was missing Derrick Rose, Pau Gasol and Kirk Hinrich.
Most of the teams Portland has unseated hail from the lowly Eastern Conference as well—five to be exact. The Blazers have faced and dispatched the Bulls, Charlotte Hornets, Brooklyn Nets, Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers.
If we're looking to split hairs even further, the combined record of the seven squads they've faced during this span is also a hardly imposing 36-60. They're beating teams by a lot—average margin of victory is 11 points—but they're winning games they're supposed to win. There's only so much optimism to be found in presumed victories.
Relative to the rest of the league, the Blazers have played through an average schedule. Just like last year. And that's most troublesome. They're relying on a similar model in which their players are firing and defending on all cylinders against inferior competition. Not everything they're doing can be sustained.
Or can it?
Two-Way Perspective
There really isn't even a question on the offensive end. The Blazers are further along on that side of the ball compared to this point last year, but their efficiency for all of 2013-14 matches up perfectly with what they're running now.
| First 14 Games of 2014-15 | 108.3 | 3 | 99.5 | 7 |
| First 14 Games of 2013-14 | 107.1 | 5 | 101.3 | 11 |
| 2013-14 Overall | 108.3 | 5 | 104.7 | 16 |
Not surprisingly, their offensive structure hasn't changed much. LaMarcus Aldridge still leads the team in usage rate—the percentage of plays run for a particular player—and the Blazers are still a moderately paced contingent that relies more on methodical passing than volume ball movement. Their assist rate ranks in the top five, even though they're in the bottom half of the league in passing.
Deliberateness is their offensive boon. They make quick decisions—almost one-third of their shots are attempted with 15 or more seconds remaining on the shot clock—and they rely on everyone from Damian Lillard to Wesley Matthews to Aldridge to shoot at a high clip off the catch. They rank in the top five of both spot-up points and field-goal percentage, just as they did last season.
That aspect of their performance isn't going anywhere. It's what they've been doing since Lillard entered the picture. They're more dangerous, if anything, because the bench is deeper.
Chris Kaman and Steve Blake have added established production to the second unit that the Blazers didn't have in 2013-14, when their bench ranked dead last in offensive efficiency, per HoopStats.com. They're a sounder 14th thus far for 2014-15.
They, assuming health, aren't going anywhere. Nor are Aldridge and Lillard. Nicolas Batum and Matthews don't have any plans to fall off the face of this Earth either.
When pondering the Blazers' fate—recent winning streak included—we're really asking one question: Will their defense hold up?
It's a fair inquiry and one without a definitive answer. The Blazers looked like one of the most well-balanced teams early on last season. But while their offense continued piling on points, their defense stumbled, falling to 18th in points allowed per 100 possessions for the final 68 games, according to NBA.com (subscription required).
And their defensive tactics haven't changed much, if at all, since last season. They don't block an inordinate number of shots (5.2 a night), and they rank 29th in turnovers forced per game (11.6).
Coach Terry Stotts employs a more reserved style of prevention prided on screen navigation and hybrid zones that force low-percentage dump-offs. Though the Blazers have been susceptible to being caught out of position off incisive passes, they've found a way increase the effectiveness of familiar ideals.
Ian Levy unpacks this further for Vantage Sports:
"The Blazers’ style stretches beyond how they defend the pick-and-roll. In general, they don’t gamble and they don’t pressure as strenuously on the perimeter as most other teams. The defensive responsibility of guards and wings is not to take risks but to corral ball-handlers and direct them toward the sagging big men in the paint. This means that the defense is not very disruptive or foul prone. ...
... Portland is willing to make some sacrifices in positioning, ceding certain spaces and actions to an opposing offense. But as soon as a shot goes up, the hands of the Blazers do too. They make their living by forcing misses instead of turnovers. Again, this is largely the same system as last season, but another year of experience and a healthy amount of roster continuity have made it more consistent and fluid.
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Internal growth will eventually give way to regression. The 99.8 points per 100 possessions they're allowing during this winning streak—higher than their mark of 99.5 for the season—would have ranked among the top four in 2013-14. And the Blazers are not a top-four defensive unit.
Heck, they may not even be a top-seven team like they are now. They've faced only one top-10 offense (Pelicans) during their winning streak and just five all season (they're 2-3 in those games).
At some point, as the campaign wears on, the Blazers should fall off their defensive pedestal. Their paint protection remains shaky, and there are portions of the schedule far more harrowing than the one they're playing through now.
Still, they're defending with more overall success. Even if they experience a similar drop-off, that's an upgrade.
Final Hurdle
Sell the Blazers' winning streak and hot start to 2014-15 if you're expecting them to play at a 65-win pace.
Buy into everything if you're wondering whether they're for real.
Last year's team, despite its overall success, was deemed a fringe disappointment. There's no need to make that same mistake this season. And, like Seerat Sohi explains for the Rolling Stone, there's no need to doubt them solely because of that mistake from last season:
"After spending upwards of a year flirting with the famed "Are they for real?" question, they aren't really closer to an answer. It likely won't rest in the maximal progress of a star, though, or any such crystallized symbol of ascendance. To say these Blazers transcend the sum of their parts downplays just how individually talented those parts are, but they have always functioned as an obstinately collective unit.
What the Blazers are – and really, this is what makes them so difficult to understand – is a test case in whether a fusion of incremental improvements can reap exponential results. The early returns, caveats and all, have been fruitful.
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Maybe the Blazers won't be a top-four Western Conference team. Maybe Lillard stops knocking down threes with career-high frequency. Maybe their defense falters a bit, as it did in 2013-14.
More likely, though, maybe this team is just better than last year's, when it surprised even itself.
"We have to make sure it doesn't get boring," Matthews cautioned, per The Oregonian's Joe Freeman. "We have to remember the things that helped us get on this streak."
Likewise, we would do well to remember this streak is different from last year's. This team is different.
Marginal improvements and tweaks to a 54-win roster shouldn't be taken lightly. That the Blazers are doing basically everything they did last year, only better, is an optimistic sign. They've seemingly safeguarded themselves against inevitable decline by becoming deeper and more consistent in most areas of the game. And while peripheral progression doesn't qualify as a leap, steps in the right direction, however slight, always matter.
And, in the Blazers' case, they're cause enough to see their win streak and overall start to 2014-15 for what it is: equally convincing as it is impressive.
*Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference and NBA.com unless otherwise cited.
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