{"id":562389,"date":"2026-01-26T18:32:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T18:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/562389\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T18:32:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T18:32:28","slug":"portland-trail-blazers-move-up-again-in-power-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/562389\/","title":{"rendered":"Portland Trail Blazers Move Up Again in Power Rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Portland Trail Blazers keep moving on up in the NBA power rankings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">After going 1-1 this past week and 9-3 in the month of January so far, NBA.com\u2019s John Schuhmann moved Portland from No. 18 to No. 17 in the league-wide rankings. The one-spot change comes after the Blazers jumped up two spots in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blazersedge.com\/trail-blazers-news\/107952\/portland-trail-blazers-move-up-nba-power-rankings-deni-avdija-jerami-grant\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">last week\u2019s list<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Schuhmann highlighted how an improved Blazers defense is helping their New Year\u2019s surge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">The Blazers are still not as good a defensive team as they were last season, but the last five games (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/team\/1610612757\/advanced?DateFrom=01%2F15%2F2026&amp;DateTo=01%2F23%2F2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">107.7 points allowed per 100 possessions<\/a>) have been their best stretch of the season on that end of the floor. They may have had some luck with how poorly their opponents have shot from 3-point range (31% over the five games), but they also rank <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/teams\/four-factors?Month=4&amp;dir=A&amp;sort=OPP_FTA_RATE\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fourth<\/a> in opponent free-throw rate this month, up from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/teams\/four-factors?DateTo=12\/31\/2025&amp;dir=D&amp;sort=OPP_FTA_RATE\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">28th<\/a> through Dec. 31.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Schuhmann also noted how important Portland star Deni Avdija is to the team\u2019s success by showing what his absence means for Portland\u2019s offensive numbers. That helps explain why Portland didn\u2019t fare so well in its 110-98 loss to the Toronto Raptors on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">The Blazers have scored a pretty anemic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/team\/1610612757\/onoffcourt-summary?dir=A&amp;sort=OFF_OFF_RATING\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">102.1 points per 100 possessions<\/a> with Avdija off the floor, and they registered their lowest free-throw rate of the season (10 attempts to go along with 98 shots from the field) as they scored just 98 on 97 against Toronto. Nine and a half minutes into the game, they had scored just six points on 19 offensive possessions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Blazers have another chance to impress the critics tonight when they take on the Boston Celtics on the road at 5 p.m. PST. It\u2019s the first game of a back-to-back, as the Blazers will also face the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers keep moving on up in the NBA power rankings. After going 1-1 this past&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,37660,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-562389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-blazers-news","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-portland","13":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","14":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","15":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115962835676971507","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}