The Portland Trail Blazers are entering uncharted waters in the Damian Lillard era. Though the team currently maintains a one-game lead over the Mavericks for the sixth seed in the Western Conference, fans have noticed a very stark slip of confidence. Each loss to a winning team seems to drain more energy from players. We can sit around and blame defense, but there might be something more amiss.
“I think there are deeper issues at hand than just defense,” said Jaosn Quick, Trail Blazers beat writer for The Athletic, during his Thursday hit with Isaac and Suke. “I’ve texted with Dame the last couple of days and he doesn’t know either.”
Sporting a record of 8-16 against winning teams, many Trail Blazer games have become predictable down the stretch. “It just seems like this team has lost its fight,” Quick explained. “Utah, Clippers, Milwaukee… The other team starts getting ahead of them and it looks like the Blazers just quit.”
Quick offers many reasons the late season deflation. Those include Jusuf Nurkic’s slow progression back to form, “They are waiting so much for Jusuf Nurkic to return to form and it’s just taking so much longer than anyone wants,” Quick explains.
Carmelo Anthony’s lack of scoring consistency off the bench is another topic of concern. “I don’t think there’s a strong voice coming from the Blazers’ bench saying ‘This is what you need to do. This is how you’re minutes are going to be structured.’”
But the most concerning aspect of their game falls to a lack of identity. “The Blazers as a whole have lost their identity,” he said.
“They’ve lost their mojo.” Hopefully they can get it back in the last 18 games of this season.
