By most measures, the Portland Trail Blazers have had a successful season. They carry a record close to .500 after enduring a mammoth list of injuries. They\u2019re operating without a point guard and they shoot terribly but they still manage middle-of-the-road offensive production. Their defense is decent, their rebounding good. 2025-26 probably won\u2019t go down in history, but it\u2019s not too shabby, all things considered.<\/p>\n
Despite that, glaring weaknesses peek their heads above the waterline like icebergs in an ocean. One of those is the subject of today\u2019s Blazer\u2019s Edge Mailbag.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been pondering this question for a while, and thought it might resolve itself when Jrue got back, but why do the Blazers have such a hard time inbounding the ball (especially at the end of games) ?!?<\/p>\n
You know they have all been taught it since they were kids, and the coaches have surely gone over many, many times. I\u2019d imagine that coaching, young\/inexperienced players, and injuries have all played a part in it but why haven\u2019t they been able to figure it out? What\u2019s the solution and who deserves the most blame?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure anyone deserves blame, per se. It\u2019s a side effect of the roster and the way they play.<\/p>\n
Look at Portland\u2019s offense normally. Obviously it varies. There are wrinkles. But consider their main, first-unit offense. What does it look like?<\/p>\n
The classic set is Deni Avdija (sometimes Jrue Holiday) up at the top near the three-point arc, maybe one person setting a loose pick that isn\u2019t used half the time, then penetration breaking down the defense for a layup. Failing that, you have the following options off of penetration:<\/p>\n
Kick to the corner to Toumani CamaraPass to Jerami Grant on the far sideline for a possible three or his own driveGet the ball to Shaedon Sharpe on the near sideline and let him operateHope Donovan Clingan rebounds whatever goes up<\/p>\n
Failing that, all heck breaks loose and you just take what you get.<\/p>\n
Any way it goes, the speed and chaos of the offense is a feature, not a bug. The approach is open-ended, almost improvisational. Even the Blazers don\u2019t know which of those five options (the layup plus the other four) is going to be the best idea on a given trip, or if something else will develop altogether.<\/p>\n
This works great (or at least well enough) when you\u2019re running the ball down the middle of the floor on a random play in the third quarter. They can do anything! The ball can go any direction! The defense can\u2019t prepare! They\u2019re scrambling everywhere!<\/p>\n
For a multitude of reasons, it doesn\u2019t work nearly as well on a sideline inbounds with 2.3 seconds left on the clock. Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n
First of all, notice that we said \u201csideline\u201d. There\u2019s a reason the Blazers initiate their offense from the top center of the floor. It\u2019s omnidirectional. Ball and players have 360-degree latitude. Inbounding from the sideline, at least one of those directions is taken away. The field through which the ball can travel is narrowed, which means the defense can key in tighter to specific spots. Defenders themselves\u2014on inbounder and receiver alike\u2014take away even more space and passing angles.<\/p>\n
The contraction of space changes the questions for the Blazers. No longer is it a matter of, \u201cHow fast are you?\u201d or, \u201cHow creative can you be?\u201d or, \u201cWhat are you willing to dare?\u201d The relevant topics on the inbounds pass are, \u201cHow tight are your timing and communication?\u201d and, \u201cHow sure are your hands?\u201d<\/p>\n
Look at Portland\u2019s turnover rate in their normal offense. It\u2019s not good. Worst in the league! But they\u2019re willing to sacrifice those turnovers as a cost of doing volume business in the shot-attempt department. That works (or well enough, anyway) when you consider a complete set of 90-100 shots taken during the game. Over time, the creative shots in the loose offense will balance out the miscues\u2026or so they hope.<\/p>\n
When the offense narrows down to one shot, one play, in a single defined space by a single player, the math doesn\u2019t math so well anymore. That scenario takes away most of the strengths of Portland\u2019s offense (speed, wide-open court, lots of options, hitting where the defense isn\u2019t) while leaving the weaknesses (poor ball-handling, not great isolation-scoring ability, messy execution) fully in place. Basically you mute the best aspects of the Blazers\u2019 attack while turning the parts you don\u2019t want to see (but have to live with) up to 11.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say I\u2019m playing a board game. 12 spaces lie ahead of me. If I land on spaces 1-3, I lose. On spaces 4-12, I\u2019m ok. If you give me two six-sided dice to roll, I\u2019m probably going to be ok. I\u2019ll get some 2\u2019s and 3\u2019s, but I\u2019ll live with them because the majority of my rolls will avoid disaster. But what happens if an opponent plays a card that removes one of those dice from my grip? Now I can only roll a single 6-sided die. The board looks the same, but I can\u2019t even get to spaces 7-12 anymore. And three of the numbers between 1-6 lead to disaster, which now comprises half of the possible outcomes. All of a sudden my options don\u2019t look so good anymore.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly what those end-of-game, sideline-inbounds plays do to the Blazers\u2019 offense.<\/p>\n
It gets worse, too. Look at Portland\u2019s top players. How many of them do you want catching the ball in that limited-space, short-seconds, fully-defended scenario?<\/p>\n
Toumani Camara is an amazing player when he shows his strengths. Isolation scoring isn\u2019t one of them. He\u2019s not going to be getting the ball on that inbounds play. Donovan Clingan is even worse, and he\u2019ll be 22 feet from the basket to boot. That leaves Avdija, Grant, and Sharpe as viable candidates. Now you\u2019re down to three players the defense has to hawk, not five, further narrowing the already-narrowed options for the offense.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s modified by the following:<\/p>\n
How many times have Avdija, Grant, and Sharpe all been healthy at the same time this season to even get in the game together?How often does Deni start his offense from the sideline? How comfortable is he there even if the catch is made?How good is Shaedon\u2019s first escape dribble to get past defenders?If you don\u2019t use Clingan in this situation, which of his substitutes are better or fix the situation? Are you helping or just giving up the potential for an offensive rebound?As the season has wound on, the Blazers have figured out this weakness and started to use Caleb Love in these situations because at least he\u2019s an apt isolation scorer. But is Love the guy you want the game riding on? Is he a solid look to score, or even catch the ball in a coordinated play?<\/p>\n
None of these things is an absolute bar to someone scoring. But you can see how we\u2019re able to chip away even at the strong parts of Portland\u2019s attack in these situations, making their success less likely.<\/p>\n
Basically what you kind of end up with is, \u201cI hope Jerami Grant catches it!\u201d Defenses know this too. So they deny and overplay Grant and\u2026bingo. The ball goes right into their hands when the Blazers try to pass it to him.<\/p>\n
And that, my friend, is how a seemingly-easy play becomes not as easy as advertised.<\/p>\n
Obviously we\u2019re overdrawing here a little bit. Not every Portland inbounds ends in disaster! They\u2019re fine most times. But if you see a disproportionate number of turnovers or bungles off of those plays, now you understand why. They don\u2019t actually employ this kind of offense regularly. (At most they run over it in practice, but that\u2019s different than running it game after game, hundreds of times on the court in the daily course of things.) They don\u2019t have perfect personnel to execute it. They\u2019re not actually that experienced, individually or together. And this is exactly the kind of scenario that isn\u2019t forgiving to all those shortcomings.<\/p>\n
One more question\u2026did you like this article? We don\u2019t ask you to pay us, fund this work, or anything like that. But once a year we band together to send people who aren\u2019t us\u2014local children and youth in need in the Portland community\u2014to see the Blazers play in person. These kids wouldn\u2019t get to go on their own without the tickets we provide and the adults in their lives organizing the trip. If you like what we do, instead of paying us, could you maybe send one of them? Whether you donate one ticket or a hundred, you\u2019re helping bring joy into their lives and changing the world in a small, good way. Here\u2019s the website where you buy directly from the Blazers<\/a>, then they put the tickets you purchase in our pool for participants. The cost is negligible\u2026a few bucks per ticket. Time is running short. The game is in March and we need to tell the groups of kids to plan for the event. Please help them out by donating a ticket (or more) today!<\/p>\n Thanks for the question too! You can always send yours to blazersub@gmail.com and we\u2019ll try to answer as many as possible!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By most measures, the Portland Trail Blazers have had a successful season. They carry a record close to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,37787,38295,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-564748","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-analysis","11":"tag-blazers-mailbags","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-portland","14":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","15":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","16":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115969012896054063","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564748","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=564748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}