{"id":622652,"date":"2026-02-24T20:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/622652\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:49:13","slug":"the-best-worst-and-likeliest-scenarios-for-the-blazers-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/622652\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best, Worst and Likeliest Scenarios For The Blazers This Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Portland Trail Blazers are 28-30 through 58 games this season and are hoping to be in the playoffs for the first time since 2021. <\/p>\n

There are a couple of different paths the Blazers can go down this season, and all of them are very different. Here’s a look at each possible scenario the Blazers could find themselves in this season. <\/p>\n

Best: Blazers Win Play-In Tournament Games, Advance to Playoffs\"Portland<\/p>\n

Portland Trail Blazers guard Jrue Holiday drives to the basket against Phoenix Suns guard Jalen Green. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

The Blazers currently sit seven games back of the No. 6 seed and 5.5 games back of the No. 11 seed. Therefore, it’s almost a certainty that the Blazers will be locked into the Play-In Tournament. This means the Blazers need to hope that they go out and win at least one, if not two Play-In games. <\/p>\n

In this hypothetical ideal situation, the Blazers would finish in the top eight<\/a>, meaning they would have two chances to win a game and advance to the playoffs. If they can win the first game, they will be the number seven seed, which will also get them a chance to avoid the first-place team, whether it be the Oklahoma City Thunder or San Antonio Spurs. <\/p>\n

It’s hard to imagine the Blazers beating either the Spurs or Thunder in a seven-game series, but getting there would be a massive accomplishment for the franchise. <\/p>\n

Worst: Blazers Lose First Play-In Tournament Game<\/p>\n

The Blazers are likely going to be in the play-in tournament, regardless of what they do in the second half of the season. However, it would be considered a failure at this point if they were to lose their first play-in game and be eliminated after that.<\/p>\n

The Blazers are capable of winning in the play-in tournament. They just need to go out and do it. They could run into a Los Angeles Clippers team that is really hungry for a win, so that could ruin their chances, but the Blazers are capable of winning a game or two. Therefore, an immediate loss and elimination would be their worst possible scenario.<\/p>\n

Likeliest: Blazers Win First Play-In Game, Lose Second, Miss Playoffs<\/p>\n

As of now, the Blazers are currently in ninth place in the Western Conference. This means that they will have a home Play-In game against the No. 10 seed, which is likely to be the Clippers. <\/p>\n

The Blazers would be favored in that game, but then they would have to go on the road to play the Phoenix Suns or Golden State Warriors in a matchup that would deem them underdogs. The Blazers might not be ready<\/a> for two consecutive elimination game victories, which would result in their elimination just before the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers are 28-30 through 58 games this season and are hoping to be in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":["post-622652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-portland-trail-blazers","tag-basketball","tag-blazers","tag-nba","tag-portland","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-portlandtrailblazers","tag-trail-blazers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116127581697777343","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622652","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=622652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}