3. Five words: LeBron James and Anthony Davis
The NBA has increasingly become a superstar driven league. As a result, a common method of analysis when comparing two teams over a seven-game series is comparing each team’s star players.
This exercise doesn’t bode well for the Portland Trail Blazers, because LeBron James and Anthony Davis are the two most unguardable players in this series.
Before the “Dame Time” stans get on my case, I’ll mention the caveat that based on his body of work across the 2019-20 season, Damian Lillard has a strong argument for being the best offensive player in this series. However, I’d quantify the most unguardable player in the series slightly differently.
In my opinion, the moniker of “most unguardable player” goes to the superstar who has the least desirable defensive matchups on the opposing team.
Thus far it’s evident that no matter who is guarding them, both Dame and CJ will still score lots of points. However, I’ve been incredibly impressed with the defensive efforts of Alex Caruso, Danny Green, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, the three Lakers’ players tasked with the responsibility of guarding the Blazers’ stars.
Their defensive ratings for the series thus far are 100, 98, and 103 respectively, all very strong numbers.
As a result, Lillard and McCollum are shooting 41.8% and 42.6% from the field respectively, an outstanding result considering how dangerous they are on the offensive end.
I won’t go as far as saying the Los Angeles Lakers’ backcourt have stopped Dame and CJ, but in having held both players below their season scoring averages thus far, they’ve certainly done an admirable job in guarding them.
Meanwhile, there is nobody on the Blazers that is capable of slowing down Anthony Davis or LeBron James.
For the series, AD is averaging 29.3 PPG /11.0 RPG / 4 APG on 50% from the field with 2 blocks per game, and those numbers would look even more dominant with positive regression at the free-throw line (63% for the series vs. 85% for the regular season).
The Blazers lack good matchup options for him at the defensive end.
Jusuf Nurkic has been the primary defender on AD this series but has shown that he isn’t fit enough to guard him for a whole game. Zach Collins is the most athletic of Portland’s big men, but he’s not going to return this series due to ankle surgery. Hassan Whiteside has done the best job of guarding Davis so far this series, but has only covered him in limited minutes and is too slow to stay with him on face-ups.
Meanwhile, LeBron James is averaging a triple-double for the series, with averages of 23.7 PPG /11.7 RPG / 10.3 APG. These numbers are incredibly impressive in a vacuum, but that’s not even the scariest part for Portland. In scoring 38 points at a high-efficiency in Game 3, LeBron showed that even at age 35, he still can flip a “playoff switch”, impose his will on a game and completely take over offensively.
Throughout the 2019-20 season, Portland’s biggest weakness defensively has been guarding athletic wings, which doesn’t bode well when playing against LeBron. Their best candidate for the task on the roster would ordinarily be Trevor Ariza, but he’s not playing in the bubble. The task has thus been left to a combination of Gary Trent Jr. and Carmelo Anthony, who have fought valiantly but are both overmatched physically.
With all due respect to Damian Lillard and his offensive talents, I feel more confident in the Laker backcourt’s ability to slow him down than I do about the Blazers’ ability to guard either Anthony Davis or LeBron James.
How do you think the rest of this series will play out? As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.