The Blazers are far from the West’s toughest team, but they had been doing quite well offensively before they visited Boston on Wednesday.
In the 14 games before facing the Celtics, Portland ranked 10th in the league in points per game. Portland was also without Jusuf Nurkic during that span, and Wednesday marked the big man’s return to action. While he helps make them a better team (and he only logged 17:28 of playing time against the Celtics), adding a key piece back into the mix after an extended absence can easily lead to short-terms hiccups.
It’s also worth noting that amidst the Celtics’ recent struggles, their defensive rating over the last six games ranks seventh in the NBA — despite Donovan Mitchell, Immanuel Quickley and Mikal Bridges all scoring 38-plus points in wins against the C’s during this stretch. While that stat helps explain the story of Wednesday’s game, it only means so much when it hasn’t translated to more wins over this stretch.
That’s especially true when you consider what Brian Scalabrine had to say on Jones & Mego before the Celtics knocked off Portland.
“I just think they had more pride in their defense last year,” he said. “I think they took that identity somewhere in the middle of the season when they were 18-21 — whenever they hit rock-bottom … from that point on, I think they were like, we’re going to be this hard-nosed defensive team.
“So, what’s the difference when you watch? They come off a screen, the difference this year is that guy is down the floor waiting for a guy. Last year, they come off a screen and they’re right to the body — it was an aggressive switch. What else is a difference: I (saw) their hands were up a lot more last year. I thought deflections were up. I just thought they’re way more active, and it felt like to me there was just a lot more pride defensively than this year. … I think defensively taking the pride against those individual (star) players was a personal thing. This year, it doesn’t seem like a personal thing,”
What led to such a shift?
“My personal opinion, (last year) was Marcus Smart,” Scalabrine said when asked where the pride came from in 2021-22. “You could probably look at the numbers. I thought he was unbelievable, defensively, last year. And I think he’s just been OK. I do think he’s an emotional leader of this team. I do think people follow him. I just thought his mindset was incredible, and he won Defensive Player of the year because of it.
“I think guys follow him. He was great, and I thought (Jayson) Tatum looked at him and thought, you know what, you’re the best defensive player, I want to be a better defensive player. And I thought (Jaylen) Brown looked at both those guys (and though), man, I’m better than you guys defensively. That’s a really good competitiveness between player and player, or within a team. I think they all took that pride. Guys coming off the bench would say the same thing, ‘I don’t want to let these guys down.’ I just thought there was this general (feeling) of more pride defensively.”
Scalabrine did add Boston wasn’t as hard-nosed defensively in the playoffs as they were in the 21-22 regular season, as well. While he thinks that was more to do with the game planning changes that happen in the postseason, perhaps something else was at play — or maybe the C’s have learned from last season’s run, as good teams tend to do. Either way, Scalabrine’s illustration of the situation makes it seem there isn’t a switch the Celtics can flip this late in the game to transform into the same defensive team they were last season.