We know the Portland Trail Blazers’ defense has been pretty good lately. While they’re 17th in defensive rating on the season, but they’re 4th since mid-January. That’s really good, but not historic. What is? How they’re doing it.
Owen Phillips, former Coordinator of Coaching Analytics for the New York Knicks, wrote on his Substack The F5 about how the Blazers’ defense is getting it done:
This year the Blazers lead the league in a niche stat that I couldn’t find tracked anywhere. I had to go into the NBA’s play-by-play data to pull it out. The stat encapsulates what makes the Blazers’ defense pop and why I think Billups might have earned himself contract extension this summer.
The stat I’m talking about is shot clock violations. This year, the Blazers have forced more shot clock violations than any other team.
He also writes that the Blazers have a chance to set the single-season record for shot clock violations: the record is 79, and the Blazers forced 69 with (at the time) ten games remaining.
Phillips gives credit to the Blazers’ coaching staff for encouraging and getting results from an exhausting style of defensive play:
A shot clock violation is a tell-tale sign of a well coached team that’s bought in on the defensive side of the ball. To force a shot clock violation all five defenders have to be in sync and be willing to give 2nd, 3rd, and sometimes 4th efforts. Defenders have to be aggressive, but not too aggressive that their aggression results in a foul. They have to be unrelenting with ball pressure and activity until the offense taps out...
It’s no surprise then that the Blazers have the highest average pickup point in the league, according to Second Spectrum tracking data. Whether it’s Toumani Camara, Scoot Henderson, or Deni Avdija — no team applies pressure to opposing ballhandlers in the backcourt more often or more relentlessly than the Blazers.
While there are just a handful of games left in the season and a play-in berth now seems unlikely, Phillips suggests that if any team could pull off an improbable (very) late-season run and sneak in, it’s Portland:
The Blazers are littered with young, indefatigable players up and down their roster. Add in Matisse Thybulle, who just came back from injury, and Billups has his pick of hyperactive defenders that are eager to perform defensive slides up and down the court. [They] have ten games left to capture the 10th seed. Time is not on their side. But if there’s a team that has a finishing kick for the home stretch, it’s the Blazers. Regardless of where they end up, I think this season has proven to be anything other than a waste of time.
The Blazers are currently 3.5 behind the Phoenix Suns for the 10th seed and the final play-in spot. Phoenix has won four games in a row, and the Blazers have lost their last two.