1. The Blazers are fatigued
One of the most enduring images I have from Game 3 is the look on Jusuf Nurkic’s face in the 4th quarter, after his attempt at a runner missed by a comical margin. Yes, there was some frustration evident, but most telling was just how exhausted he looked.
This did not go unnoticed by the basketball blogosphere. On the NBA subreddit, the most upvoted comment in the post-game thread was the following:
Comment from discussion raymondliang’s comment from discussion " The Los Angeles Lakers defeat the Portland Trail Blazers 116-108 to take a 2-1 series lead behind 38/12/8 from LeBron James".
While part of Nurkic’s exhaustion can be attributed to being matched up with the supremely athletic Anthony Davis, there’s more to it than merely the tough assignment. As you may recall, he missed 15 months of basketball after a horrific injury. Normally, after an extended absence, teams tend to slowly ramp up a player’s minutes as a means of increasing their fitness and work capacity.
However, due to the urgency of the race for the 8th seed, the Blazers ignored common convention and played Nurk a career-high 31.6 minutes per game in the 8 games he played.
This postseason, the minutes have increased to almost 33 per game and that’s including a game 2 blowout where the starters sat early.
Nurkic isn’t the only Blazer that’s likely to be exhausted.
As part of their herculean efforts to drag Portland to the playoffs, in the bubble, Damian Lillard averaged nearly 42 minutes per game and C.J McCollum averaged just under 41. In the two non-blowout games this series, the pair have averaged 43 and 42 minutes respectively.
The fact that the Blazers’ most important players have played an unfathomably large number of minutes across almost a month of basketball has almost certainly taken its physical toll.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Lakers’ star players are well-rested by comparison. With the Lakers having locked up the number 1 seed in the West relatively early, Frank Vogel had the luxury of not needing to play his stars excessive minutes.
As a result, Anthony Davis and LeBron James averaged 34.6 and 31.7 minutes respectively in the bubble, numbers that were either in-line with or less than their season averages.
Now that we’re at the business end of the season, the benefits of all that extra rest are starting to be realized. In overrunning the Blazers in the second half of Game 3, the Lakers looked to be the far fresher and fitter of the two teams. It’s a trend I expect to continue for the rest of the series.