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What is the best chance of the Portland Trail Blazers in this Western Conference final match with the Golden State Warriors?
Warriors-Blazers presents two of the best backcourts in the league: Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum for Portland against Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson for Golden State.
If the Blazers succeed, how did they do it? And what will the warriors without Durant look like, who is ready to start the series?
As we approach the first match (Tuesday at 9:00 pm Eastern Time on ESPN), our NBA experts answer the big questions.
1. What excites you most about this series?
Jorge Sedano: The substantive matches. You have the second and third best backcourts in the NBA this season. Curry (27.3 points per game) and Thompson (21.5) were No. 2 in the NBA behind Houston, followed by Lillard and McCollum. If you like to score and shoot, here's what you should focus on. I will definitely be obsessed with this.
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Kevin Pelton: Both backcourts negotiate long-range shootings (with many McCollum midrangers as well). With the decline of Chris Paul, it is quite possible to claim that the Blazers have the second best backcourt in the NBA after the Warriors, and that these two players are certainly near the top of the most entertaining duos of the perimeter of the league.
Bobby Marks: We can look for something else that we are passionate about – Draymond Green versus Enes Kanter, the Blazers playing the role of observer – but backcourts offer as good a game as we've seen in a long-running conference final.
André Snellings: I am also here for the battle of backcourts. Lillard and McCollum are the legitimate opponents of Curry and Thompson as the best guards duo in the league. Both backcourts have an absolutely explosive scoring ability, able to penetrate individually or in tandem in areas likely to scare their opponents.
Royce Young: Same here. Lillard and McCollum have long watched the Splash brothers with a respectful desire, considering themselves on the same level as them, but without the achievements. It's their chance to prove something, not just to everyone, but to themselves.
2. What is the biggest advantage of Portland?
Shouts: Lillard and McCollum are as interchangeable as threats. McCollum has six games with at least 27 points in those playoffs, including four of his efforts in his last five games. Lillard surpasses him with eight of those games, including three of his last five. Both are major outside threats – according to Second Spectrum tracking, they rank among the top 25 total units in which they finished the game.
Pelton: Depth. While the Warriors had good performances on the bench to close Houston without Kevin Durant, it remains that Steve Kerr has trusted only six players to play more than 14 minutes per game in the playoffs, which includes Durant. Eight Portland players average an average of 18 minutes and this number does not include Evan Turner's unlikely hero for the seventh game.
Marks: Size that leads to additional possessions. Especially after their 15 minutes together on Sunday, plan a strong dose of Kanter and Zach Collins. The two players are one of the main reasons why the Blazers have an average of 16.3 seconds of luck per game in the playoffs (No. 2 overall).
Sedano: The Warriors' bench has come a long way in the sixth game, but if there is an advantage for the Blazers, it is that their bench (which has sometimes had difficulties this season) is warming up at the right time. Rodney Hood, Seth Curry and Collins have been great when they are together. In the last round of the Denver Nuggets, three of the four best duos among the Blazers included a combination of Hood, Curry and Collins.
Young: Umm Hmm. Let's see. It's not easy to find one, but if there is anything, it's chemistry and a more general sense of fate with the organization. The Blazers are a team (and a franchise) as narrow as you can find, without any question of autonomous agent or distraction to manage on a daily basis. Does it help to win four games in a playoff series? May be?
3. What is the biggest disadvantage of Golden State (aside from Kevin Durant's absence)?
Marks: The bench. Apart from Kevon Looney, can one trust the Golden State bench to provide additional scores in a seven-game series, particularly with Durant's uncertainty? The depth was an achilles heel for Portland in the regular season, but it's now become a force.
Find everything you need to know about the playoffs here.
Young: Se. The greatest enemy of warriors is often the one in the mirror. In this quest for a third consecutive title, pressure and tension increase even more. The Warriors have to fight against outside forces more than any other team, but that it's about the internal struggle to define their true identity with Durant vs. without, or to play with confidence playing against gagging or of appetite against focus, the Warriors play against themselves. as much as they are the Blazers.
Shouts: Warriors are not awesome defending the circle of choice – and ranking 15th out of the 16 post-season teams in points awarded by direct choice in these series, per second of spectrum tracking. (Playing against James Harden for six games certainly does not help those numbers.) This is an opportunity for Lillard and McCollum to try to take advantage. Plus, with Durant and DeMarcus Cousins throwing blockers starting the series and the Warriors playing smaller balls more often, they do not have as much rim protection to slow down the action of the pick and roll Trail Blazers.
Sedano: OK, full disclosure: I may be able to stretch a bit to answer this one. The general lack of depth of the Warriors resulted in a heavy load of minutes for starters. This will continue with Durant unavailable for the first match and the still uncertain status of the Cousins. After Game 6 against the Rockets, Steve Kerr lamented not playing earlier on his bench. Here is his opportunity to get there.
Pelton: Any tendency to relax after sending the Rockets. Kerr's decision to start the Hamptons 5 in the first game made it clear that Kerr was treating the Houston game as an NBA final. Complacency was arguably the toughest enemy of the Warriors all season, and lowering their intensity could be a problem, as in the first game of last year's NBA finals, a game that Golden State needed more time to win.
4. Which of these projections is the most accurate to correct in your opinion?
A. GSW 89% likely to progress (538)
B. GSW 71% chance to advance (BPI)
Pelton: A. I was wrong about this throughout the series, but I think that is the series in which the Blazers finally felt the absence of Jusuf Nurkic. He averaged 20.3 points, 10.0 rebounds and 3.3 assists as teams broke away from the season series, which ended before the start of Ennes Kanter in Portland . Steph Curry's ability to pull in the third could be a bigger challenge for Kanter's defense than Oklahoma City or Denver.
Young: B. The cause of the Blazers lies in the unknown health of Durant. He should be back for the series, but how many games will he miss? And what percentage does he have on his return? This opens the door in Portland to steal one of the first two in Oracle. If that happens, with their raucous home court at Moda Center, they have a shot.
Shouts: B. The Blazers have played in the last 45 games of the season with 32 wins and 13 losses (58 wins), with a margin of over 6.8. They have saved this level of play in the playoffs. The Warriors are incredible, but they will feel the loss of Durant and Cousins. Portland has characteristics in common with the teams that defied the Warriors the most during their dynasty, giving the Blazers at least one chance to punch in this series.
Marks: A. I know we should give the Blazers more luck – especially after what we saw in the first two rounds and with Durant set apart. However, if the Warriors play as they did in the sixth game on the road in Houston, this series will be over in five games.
Sedano: B. I was quite categorical: even without Durant, this Warriors team would be the favorite to win the title. The Blazers have been a beautiful story. Lillard, McCollum & Co. deserve a ton of credit for overcoming the shortcomings of the previous rounds and Nurkic's injury. I think that they can make this series a little more interesting than most others. However, this should be done with the six warriors.
5. If the Blazers won this series, how did they do it?
Young: The Warriors will likely deploy a trapping and blitzing approach to Lillard. So McCollum will be responsible for cooking against Thompson. And as in the series against Denver, the Blazers must find a way to make the most of their benefits: Hood against smaller defenders, Kanter on the offensive, Collins opacity. Lillard and McCollum will be at the center of their concerns: Can they beat Curry and Thompson?
Marks: The easy answer is that Lillard and McCollum combine 70 points per game and carry Portland to four wins. But I consider the first match as the decisive factor of this series. Can the Blazers keep their momentum less than 48 hours after winning a seventh road match to steal a match from the first road? If they do, expect a long run.
Sedano: Literally, everything will have to break for them. Schematically, their best move to succeed is to have Curry defend each possession. Make sure Lillard or McCollum are on him when they attack in attack. We have seen Cavs and Rockets from previous years use this strategy with minimal success. It is to be hoped that tired legs will come into play when the depth of the warriors runs out.
Shouts: It starts with a strong team effort in which Curry and Thompson do not easily get 3-point opportunities. Collins goes on to the next stage as a defensive anchor, relying on the 3.3-minute blocks in 23.4 minutes that he has averaged over the last four games from the Nuggets series. Durant and Cousins miss the essential of the series, which reduces the main scoring options of Warriors to star guards. Lillard and McCollum find a way to take advantage of it and take their team to the NBA Finals.
Pelton: In one of the first two games on the road, Durant and the Warriors still feeling out of the series, they then dominated home field advantage to win six wins after being 5-1. at home during the first two rounds. Golden State has lost more than 15 points and more in its last four regular season games in Portland. (Prior to that, for the sake of fairness, the Warriors had won five straight games at the Moda Center, dating back to the fourth game of the 2016 team's semifinal matchup.)
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