Under new head coach Chauncey Billups, the Trail Blazers’ near worst defense in the league remains a cause for concern.
Thursday night’s 114-83 loss to the Spurs broke the Trail Blazers’ 10-game winning streak at home. Currently, they are leading 10-2 at home but it is their poor 1-10 record that really drags their overall record down.
After five games on Thursday, Portland finished ninth in the West with an 11-12 record under their new coaching staff led by Chauncey Billups.
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While the former NBA champion and final MVP had much to talk about at work about how the team will change but about a quarter of the way through the 2021-22 season, the team is still facing and trying to fix the same problem that has occurred over the past few years.
Defense!
After 23 matches, defensive rating of 111.8 rated 28 in the league ranked them just above the Memphis Grizzlies (29th) and the New Orleans Pelicans.
This lousy play at one end of the pitch often reverses the effects of foul play, with the team not only ranked in the Top 10 this season but among the best teams in the league over the past few seasons.
| Season | Defensive Rating (Ranking) | Offensive Rating (Ranked) |
| 2018-19 | ||
| 2019-20 | 114.3 (27th) | 113.2 (3rd place) |
| 2020-21 | 115.3 (29th) | 117.1 (2nd place) |
| 2021-22 (23 matches) | 111.8 (28th) | 110.4 (8th place) |
It’s all gone downhill, as illustrated in the table above, since the 2017-18 season when they finished with sixth best defensive rating in the league.
A failure to turn things around, especially at the end of the last few seasons, among other things has led to a nine-year separation between the team and former head coach Terry Stotts.
However, things do not seem to have changed under the new head coach. It’s still early days, but a team with their kind of talent shouldn’t and can’t rank that low on the league’s standings in terms of defense.
They allow the opponent to score 110.2 points per game, ranked 24th in the tournament. They are at the bottom of the standings in terms of defense 3 points, average allow 13.7 3 pointers per game (27th) with an efficiency of 38.1 percent (28th).
These overall defensive numbers seem drop even more to the league’s worst 119.1 when they played on the road, a huge reason for their poor 1-10 record away from Moda Center.
For the team to do any legit league, led by their all-NBA talent at Damian Lillard, their effort and performance at that end of the floor needs to ramp up.
Otherwise, they could extend their NBA best-performing playoff streak but would remain in the bottom half of the table with only the first-round appearances they have a name to show off.
