The Portland Trail Blazers, perhaps with Jrue Holiday finally in tow, will look to extend their five-game winning streak as they host Jalen Brunson and one of the East’s best teams in the New York Knicks this Sunday.
The Knicks Report
Having already conquered the Emirates™ NBA Cup – to some, the absolute pinnacle of sporting accomplishments – the Knicks now face an even larger feat: slowing down the red-hot and rolling Trail Blazers. More likely, though, the onus will be on the Blazers to contain the league’s fourth-best offense.
The Knicks possess an overwhelming amount of offensive talent, a quality especially apparent in the halfcourt. Did you do a good job of containing Jalen Brunson on the pick and roll? Great! Karl-Anthony Towns has already picked and popped. Did you effectively close out on Towns’ shot attempt? You’re a rockstar! He has swung the ball to the 40-percent-from-three Mikal Bridges. If Bridges happens to miss, you can be sure that Mitchell Robinson or Blazers Legend Josh Hart already collected the offensive rebound.
New York Coach Mike Brown has the Knicks playing an offensive style very similar to the Blazers, albeit much more efficiently. The movement-heavy, pass-and-cut-laden system resembles the third-stage Pokemon evolution of the Blazers’ current offense. The breadth of talent involved in these disorienting actions can create headaches for any roster lacking switchability. In theory, the Blazers’ length and defensive versatility presents a sound matchup. The Blazers will have to be diligent in containing any first, second, or third actions initiated by the Knicks, minimizing the number of scrambles they find themselves in.
All that said, the Knicks still employ at least five guys that can give you 30 on any given night. Any conjecture about “schemes” or “gameplans” remains at the whim of Deuce McBridge absolutely hooping. The Blazers must simply hoop harder.
Blazers Report
And just like that, we’re almost .500! The Blazers seem to have emerged from their early-season, post-injury skid, having discovered two legit rotation guys in Sidy Cissoko and Caleb Love along the way. The Blazers have now won seven of their last eight games, and have created two-and-a-half games of breathing room between themselves and the tenth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies.
The Blazers are coming into Sunday with momentum on their side, emerging flawless from a two-game, playoff-like gauntlet against the Houston Rockets. Nearly every member of the Blazers’ active roster contributed meaningfully across those two matchups, which – coupled with the sustained brilliant play of Deni Avdija, Shaedon Sharpe and Donovan Clingan – indicates that the Blazers have turned a corner towards sustainable, winning basketball.
The Blazers will need those performances to continue against the Knicks. While the Alperen Sengun-less Rockets struggled with locating consistent offense outside of Kevin Durant, it doesn’t take much spelunking for the Knicks to score points. The Blazers cannot expect to out-shoot the Knicks, as they did against Houston. Rather, they will have to rely upon Donovan Clingan winning the second-chance-points-battle against Mitchell Robinson, and Deni Avdija exceeding Jalen Brunson’s offensive output.
It will take a big effort to contain New York. But if the Blazers can muster the same spirit they did last game, and drag the Knicks down into the mud with them, winning remains a surmountable task.
What you Need to Know
Portland Trail Blazers (19-20) vs. New York Knicks (24-14) - Sun. Jan 11 - 3pm Pacific
How to watch via antenna or cable: See your options on the Rip City Television Network.
How to watch via streaming: BlazerVision in Oregon and Washington; League Pass or NBA TV everywhere else.
Trail Blazers Injuries: Robert Williams (Questionable); Jrue Holiday (Doubtful); Jerami Grant, Scoot Henderson, Damian Lillard, Kris Murray, Matisse Thybulle, Blake Wesley (Out).
Knicks Injuries: Guerschon Yabusele (Questionable); Josh Hart, Landry Shamet (Out).
What to Watch For
Bruising Bigs. To the naked eye, Donovan Clingan and Mitchell Robinson seem like very similar players. Both are in the 90th+ percentile of offensive rebounders in the league. Both are in the 90th+ percentile for blocks. Both seem to be offensively challenged, lumbering and clunky. However, stats can often lie. Though Robinson is in the top echelon of play finishers, he does so on a severely limited volume, averaging less than three attempts per game. Clingan boasts a very poor effective field goal percentage for a center, but in recent games has demonstrated both willingness and ability to stretch his game to the three-point line. In the limited minutes that Robinson plays, Clingan will need to establish himself as the better of the two giant persons.
Bruising Bigs 2: Electric Boogaloo. The Knicks also happen to employ Karl-Anthony Towns, which complicates Clingan’s duties a bit. In their last contest against the Rockets, the Blazers lost Robert Williams III to a still-undisclosed knee injury. If and when the Knicks field their most effective double-big lineup featuring both Robinson and Towns, the Blazers ought to hope that one of Duop Reath or Yang Hansen is ready to perform. Thankfully for the Blazers, Towns is still finding his footing offensively, shooting a career low 46.6% from the field, and only 34.9% from three.
Second Efforts and Scrambles. As stated previously, the Knicks’ offense features frequent, erratic movement, secondary actions, and even tertiary actions. It could even be more actions, but I don’t know what word comes after tertiary. That said, the Blazers will need to stay organized defensively. The Blazers often find themselves struggling during defensive breakdowns, and face difficulty recovering from big scrambles. To contain the fifteen-headed hydra that is the Knicks offense, the Blazers have to stay principled from the beginning of their defensive possessions.
What Others are Saying
Jason Burgos of Yahoo! Sports suggests that the Knicks should be in the Jaren Jackson Jr. business, moving on from Karl-Anthony Towns to upgrade their defense:
“The Knicks would lose a top scorer [in Karl Anthony Towns] and be locked into Jackson Jr.’s contract for as many as five more years. Three more than Towns’. However, they get an elite defensive big who has grown a lot as a scorer in recent years. A starting five featuring Jackson Jr., OG Anunoby, and Mikal Bridges could be a big problem for even elite offenses.
The deal would be intriguing for Memphis because they would get one of the best shooting bigs of all-time with just two years (player option in 2027-28) left on his deal. Herro is also another top-shelf scorer. Both would certainly keep them in the playoff hunt this year. But most importantly, a trade would mean three first-round picks (including their own) for a draft letter this year that is considered one of the best in a very long time.“