CJ McCollum

Trail Blazers' Defense Reaches Historic Lows After Loss to Nuggets

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 12:46 p.m. ET

Fansided, McLayne Bertsch/FanSided via Rip City Project

Trail Blazers give their worst defensive effort of the season in a loss to the Nuggets. Will they ever improve?

After an impressive performance versus the shorthanded Oklahoma City Thunder, the Trail Blazers’ much-maligned defense might have turned the corner. It would only take one more solid performance to escape the cellar of the NBA defensive ratings. Then… last night happened.

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Last night was clearly the worst defensive performance of the season. Mostly, because of the opposition: Denver is an average offensive team and mostly a poor team overall. They aren’t a great three point shooting team. On Thursday night, Pepsi arena might as well have been Oracle arena. The Nuggets hit 15-31 from deep and crossed the 100 point mark in the third quarter. Game-to-game variances can be misleading, but this is now a norm for Trail Blazers’ opponents.

According to basketballreference.com, the Trail Blazers now possess a 113.59 defensive rating. How poor is that? It’s been six years since an NBA team has finished a season over 113 (Toronto Raptors in 2010-2011). It’s bad. Very, very bad.

For how efficient Portland’s offense is this year, it’s more than offset by their poor defense in almost every statistic. Take three pointers as an example: The Trail Blazers are known for their three point prowess on offense. CJ McCollum and Damian Lillard provide the most lethal deep threat outside of Golden State. The Trail Blazers make 37% of their three point attempts, good for 8th in the league. Unfortunately, the defense now gives up 38% to opponents on threes pointers.

A 28 game sample size is not enough to make a panic trade: Portland started out 15-24 last year. They have essentially the same roster last year’s team that was not nearly as poor defensively. The talent is there. However, the Trail Blazers clearly need to solely focus on defense. Portland is wasting career offensive years from Lillard, McCollum, Maurice Harkless and more.

Wins are not going to come this season with an historically poor defense. Even minor improvements will go a long way. It is time to scrap every offensive practice plan going forward, hire a defensive specialist assistant coach, slow the game down, etc. Offensive statistics are great, but winning is better.