Portland Trail Blazers Must Contain Chris Paul, J.J. Redick to Save Season
LOS ANGELES — There are several important matchups to watch as the Los Angeles Clippers and Portland Trail Blazers do battle in their first-round series.
But nothing is under a harsher microscope than the star-powered backcourt clash, where Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum have the never-envied task of defending Chris Paul and J.J. Redick.
In a results-oriented business, they failed miserably during their 115-95 Game 1 loss. Paul finished with 28 points (on 19 shots) and 11 assists in 33 minutes, while Redick wiggled free for 17 points (on 12 shots) in 27 minutes. Behind Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, it's hard to think of a backcourt more collaboratively devastating.
Dangerous Duo
Paul is a seemingly flawless floor general, the blood that pumps through the Clippers' veins and keeps them alive when it looks time to count them out.
At 30 years old, he's coming off a regular season where he led the league in assist percentage for the fourth year in a row. He also recorded the second-highest usage rate of his career, finished with his highest points-per-game average since 2012 (19.5) and landed the No. 5 spot in NBA player efficiency rating.
It was a great year, in part because his partner in crime was the deadliest spot-up shooter in the league—a perfect route-runner who ignites L.A.'s offense by whirling around a maze of screens before stopping on a dime and introducing the ball to nylon over and over again.
During an era when nothing is more valuable than the three-point shot, Redick just led the NBA in three-point percentage. When Paul feeds him ammunition, the Clippers are just about impossible to stop. During the regular season, their net rating was plus-13.0 in nearly 2,000 minutes as a tandem.
And if the Blazers can't slow these two down in Game 2, they'll quickly perish as a smudge on L.A.'s windshield.
"[The Clippers] have so many ways that they can hurt you," Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts said before his team lost by 20 points in Game 1. "I think it starts with Chris Paul, and that's difficult because you can't really take him out of a game. You can't double-team him because that just gives him an opportunity to make his teammates better. They have terrific outside shooting."
True to his word, Stotts and the Trail Blazers didn't even try doubling Paul, despite the ridiculously difficult shots L.A.'s MVP candidate drained Sunday.
Lillard was the victim more times than not—Paul went 8-of-10 and had 17 points with Lillard on him, per B/R Insights—but Portland's best player still put up a fight. He battled in isolation and forced low-efficiency attempts that happened to go in.
"As far as guarding CP, it was our same defense: We force guys off the three-point line, make them shoot mid-range pull-ups and floaters, and, you know, we live with the result," Lillard said. "Unfortunately, that's his game. He loves that area. We just contested a lot of those shots and his isolations, we were physical and we were right there. A player at his level, he's going to make those shots sometimes, and tonight he made them."
There were a few hiccups here and there (more on that later), but for the most part, Lillard is right: Paul had the type of night that forces whoever's guarding him to tip their cap and then cry themselves to sleep.
To Do
It's possible Paul misses those shots in Game 2. It's also possible he stays hot in a four-game sweep.
To avoid that worst-case scenario, Stotts has at least one break-in-case-of-emergency alternative: Al-Farouq Aminu.
The long, versatile Aminu spent most of the series opener with the nasty task of guarding Blake Griffin, and he had no more luck in that assignment than Lillard did with his. But once Portland began to consistently switch Paul's ball screens, Aminu was able to come up for air on the perimeter. It's a small sample size, but his rangy arms appeared to give CP3 some trouble:
What if Stotts puts Aminu on Paul from the opening tip, then hides Lillard on a non-shooting threat like Luc Mbah a Moute? He can then either plug Maurice Harkless on Griffin or start a more traditional body type at the 4, like Noah Vonleh or Ed Davis.
If they stay small but place Aminu on Paul, the Blazers can seamlessly switch any pick-and-roll involving Griffin without getting crushed too badly with a mismatch. It's not a perfect strategy, but it can't hurt to try, especially if they drop Game 2.
Like Lillard said, the Trail Blazers executed their game plan Sunday night; they just had really bad luck. Shots fell for the Clippers and didn't for them.
This extends to the work McCollum did on Redick, who went 5-of-7 on contested shots in Game 1. That's a stat the Trail Blazers are relatively happy to live with, especially considering so many of Redick's attempts came inside the three-point line. (Only the Chicago Bulls, Detroit Pistons and San Antonio Spurs forced more mid-range jumpers in the regular season than Portland.)
McCollum did a decent enough job tracking Redick around the floor, but sometimes nothing can be done short of reading his mind and then beating him to where he's trying to go.
Still, there's always room for improvement. Whenever Redick curled off a screen inside the three-point line, Portland's big (most often Mason Plumlee) stayed put in the paint, for fear that Redick would go off the dribble and float a soft lob to DeAndre Jordan.
That's an acceptable strategy, but when a trailing McCollum (or whoever) is clearly knocked off line by a pick that springs Redick free behind the arc, the screener's man needs to call out a switch and hop up to take sure death away.
Here's Aminu not doing that:
To switch or not to switch is an issue Portland faced throughout Game 1, and it'll need to figure that out if it wants to win the series.
Sometimes it's a disaster—like when Griffin ended up on Lillard at the free-throw line, then bulldozed his way through the paint for a dunk—and sometimes it's effective. Sometimes it makes sense for Lillard and McCollum to swap assignments, either away from the ball or on it.
This isn't easy and requires instantaneous communication, but these are the problems Paul and Redick create:
It happens in the blink of an eye, but midway through the clip shown above, Mbah a Moute screens Lillard off Paul to free up an uncontested gimme. McCollum is a few feet away, but instead of stepping up and assuming a different, far more important responsibility, he sticks to his man (Mbah a Moute), and the Clippers snatch two easy points.
Later in the game, McCollum and Lillard finally switch in a similar situation, but as seen below, Paul catches the former Lehigh star leaning the wrong way before leading him into Jordan's chest. For the best point guard of his generation, both sequences are his version of shooting fish in a barrel:
To come back and win this series, Portland must tighten its defensive coverage. Lillard and McCollum need to be Paul and Redick's shadows, and if they can't get it done, Stotts needs to switch things around and do whatever it takes to make at least one of the opposing backcourt members uncomfortable.
The Blazers offense is what got them this far. They were fantastic throughout the regular season and could score with the best teams in the league.
In this particular matchup, defense is key to their survival.
All quotes in this article were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com or Stats.NBA.com.
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