{"id":622584,"date":"2026-02-24T20:09:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/622584\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:09:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:09:14","slug":"portland-trail-blazers-drop-in-nba-power-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/622584\/","title":{"rendered":"Portland Trail Blazers Drop in NBA Power Rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Portland Trail Blazers have won 5 of their last 7 games as they continue to flirt with a .500 record, standing at 28-30. However, one of those losses was an embarrassing 157-103 beatdown to the Denver Nuggets on Friday, and Portland All-Star Deni Avdija\u2019s ailing back <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blazersedge.com\/trail-blazers-injury-report\/109543\/portland-trail-blazers-deni-avdija-nba-injury-report-minnesota-timberwolves-news-yang-hansen-lillard\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">continues to pose problems<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">It would seem for those reasons, NBA.com\u2019s John Schuhmann dropped the Blazers from No. 19 to No. 20 in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/news\/power-rankings-2025-26-week-19\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">his latest league-wide power rankings<\/a>. In his takeaways about the team this week, Schuhmann took an analytical look at the not-so-great situation regarding Avdija\u2019s back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">You have to wonder how much Deni Avdija is going to be able to play over the last seven weeks of the season. He played less than a minute in Phoenix on Sunday, leaving early (again) with continued back issues, and he\u2019s played more than 20 minutes in just six of the Blazers\u2019 last 18 games. The Blazers were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/team\/1610612757\/onoffcourt-summary?DateFrom=&amp;DateTo=01\/11\/2026&amp;dir=D&amp;sort=DIFF_NET_RATING\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">much better<\/a> with Avdija on the floor prior, but have been outscored by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/team\/1610612757\/onoffcourt-summary?DateFrom=01\/13\/2026&amp;DateTo=02\/22\/2026&amp;dir=A&amp;sort=ON_NET_RATING\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">18 points per 100 possessions<\/a> in his limited (193) minutes over this 18-game stretch and have won seven of the 12 games in which he\u2019s played fewer than 20.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Schuhmann also shined a critical spotlight on the Blazers\u2019 turnover problems lately, which were only outdone by a shorthanded Phoenix squad:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">Their win in Phoenix ended a streak of 11 straight games where the Blazers committed more turnovers than their opponent. They actually had 21 on Sunday, but the Suns (playing without Devin Booker and Dillon Brooks) committed 23 and scored just 77 points on 94 possessions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">While Avdija will be out due to lower back injury management, the Blazers will take the floor again tonight to face the Minnesota Timberwolves. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. PST at the Moda Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers have won 5 of their last 7 games as they continue to flirt with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,37787,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-622584","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-nba","12":"tag-portland","13":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","14":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","15":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116127424280480257","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622584","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=622584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}