The three best records in the NBA belong to the Warriors, Grizzlies and Blazers. What do all three Western Conference teams have in common? Continuity.
Besides for some minor tweaks, (Shaun Livingston, Vince Carter, Steve Blake and Chris Kaman) Golden State, Memphis and Portland retained their core players and have been extremely successful over the first quarter of the regular season.
For Portland, now at 16-4 after Sunday’s win over New York, this is the third season the LaMarcus Aldridge-Damian Lillard-Nicolas Batum-Wes Matthews quartet is together and the team has shown a marked improvement defensively to complement their high-powered offense.
“We’re comfortable with each other, really familiar with who guys are as players and now we’re just better,” Lillard said. “The amount of time we’ve been together and what we’ve gone through and what we’ve accomplished together, we’re just better now.”
This is Lillard’s third year in the league and also the third year for Portland under head coach Terry Stotts.
“I think continuity is very important in this league,” Stotts told SheridanHoops. “I think the fact that this is my third year and we’ve had a lot of the core players here going into this third season, so there’s a familiarity with each other, with what we want to do on the court on both ends and I think there’s a bond that’s developed.”
The bond developed between the aforementioned core quartet and role players like Robin Lopez, Blake, Kaman and others has allowed to bring the success they’ve cultivated on the offensive end over to defense.
“Defensively we’ve grown,” Aldridge said. “[We’re] making teams take mid-range shots and force them into contested shots.”
“I think coach has put more emphasis on it, so a credit to the coaching staff,” Backup big man Thomas Robinson said. “And as a team, we bought in but I think this year we base things on trying to be a solid defensive team. To be up there defensively the same we were offensively.”
How much has the defense grown? Take a look at the year-to-year comparison to show where Portland improved.
| Blazers D (League Rank) | D Rating | Scoring D | Field Goal D | 3 FG D | Points Per Shot | Free Throw Attempts | Rebounds | Turnover % |
| 2013-2014 | 107.4 (16) | 102.8 (22) | 45.1 (11) | 35.5 (11) | 1.17 (5) | 22.2 (9) | 46.4 (1) | 11 (30) |
| 2014-2015 | 101.7 (4) | 96 (6) | 43.4 (6) | 29.6 (2) | 1.12 (2) | 21.7 (7) | 47.3 (1) | 11.1 (29) |
They’re allowing nearly six fewer points per 100 possessions thanks to markedly improved 3-point defense and top-10 NBA rankings in several major defensive categories, including tops in rebounds for the second straight year. Stotts’ defense is known for being relatively conservative, which would explain the dismal percentage of possessions that end in forced turnovers.
Lillard said the bump in the Blazers’ defensive numbers stems from accountability.
“We know we’re going to be a really good offensive team, but we needed to be better defensively last season,” Lillard told SheridanHoops. “We’ve got to know that we need guys to see bodies and help each other out and communicate and be willing to take the challenge to guard the guy that we’re guarding and do it for 48 minutes.”
“For us to become championship caliber we had to step it up on the defensive end,” Blake said. “We’ve done a fantastic job of making transition defense a priority and guys have really bought into our schemes.”
Lopez said that just the fact that the team has been together for a long period of time helped the team on defense
“I really think it’s just continuity,” Lopez told SheridanHoops. “I think usually when you put a team together, at least through half a season, you’re not necessarily going to struggle defensively but it’s not going to be your strength, you know? So that’s pretty much what happened to us last season. It’s something people worked on over the summer and I think we’re just a year stronger, honestly.”
A few Portland players said they were stronger after the second round playoff drubbing they took from San Antonio last year. New York head coach Derek Fisher, who played against the Blazers several times during his tenure as a reserve on the division rival Oklahoma City Thunder, said that the Spurs series made the team better in the long run.
“Adversity brings the best out of a lot of people,” Fisher said, “and I think they found out a lot about who they were in San Antonio last year, and they’re back this year to take another step.”
With a strong team intact for the third straight year, stellar chemistry and an improved defense from the year before, the Portland TrailBlazers seem extremely ready and poised to take that step and make another deep playoff run.
Shlomo Sprung is a national columnist for SheridanHoops who focuses on analytics, profiles and features. He is also the web editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. A 2011 graduate of Columbia University’s Journalism School, he has previously worked for the New York Knicks, The Sporting News, Business Insider and other publications. You should follow him on Twitter.