With the Spurs vs. Blazers series officially set, it\u2019s time for us to go through what each team brings to the table. Today, we\u2019ll start with a quick overview of some stylistic quirks to monitor, before releasing a full preview in the coming days.<\/p>\n
First up: the turnover battle.<\/p>\n
These teams are polar opposites in the turnover game. San Antonio is great at protecting the ball on offense (12.9% turnover rate, 4th best) but struggles to steal the rock on defense (forces turnovers on 12.8% of defensive possessions, 28th), while Portland loves coughing up the ball (16.8% turnover rate, 30th) but is also very good at taking it away from opponents (forces turnovers on 15.3% of defensive possessions, 7th). In other words, it\u2019ll be a battle of weaknesses on the Spurs end, but also a clash of strengths on the Blazers\u2019 side.<\/p>\n
With that said, individual matchups will also matter, and Steph Castle could be an X-factor on both ends of the court. Castle averages over a steal per game and will likely spend lots of time guarding Avdija, who has both the highest usage and turnover rate (15.1%) on the Blazers. On the other hand, Castle himself is very turnover-prone (15.9%), which would play into the hands of Portland\u2019s trifecta of elite perimeter defenders in Holiday, Camara, and Thybulle.<\/p>\n
Portland\u2019s rim frequency <\/p>\n
Portland prioritizes shots near the rim, as 35.2% of their attempts come within four feet of the basket (5th highest league-wide). Thankfully, the Spurs have perhaps the greatest rim protector in league history in Wemby, whose presence alone deters opponents from shooting. In fact, only 26.2% of opposing shots come at the basket when he plays, and it\u2019ll be interesting to see if the Blazers see a similar drop in rim frequency.<\/p>\n
Even if they decide to keep shooting, don\u2019t expect many to go in. The Blazers are only making 66.3% of their shots in that area (18th league-wide), and with Wemby on the court, the Spurs are letting in just 60.8% of those attempts. If Portland struggles down low, they could pivot to shooting more threes, as they\u2019re already top 5 in three-point frequency (43.2%) while San Antonio gives up an average number of attempts (37.8%, 14th league-wide).<\/p>\n
Portland\u2019s pick & roll frequency<\/p>\n
One way of pulling Wemby away from the rim would be putting him in as many high pick-and-rolls as possible, and Portland\u2019s 17.1% P&R frequency ranks in the league\u2019s top 10. However, the Alien is such a physical freak that he\u2019s fast and long enough to contain both the ballhandler before recovering to the roll man. As a result, the Spurs actually welcome P&Rs, allowing 16.9% of defensive possessions to involve such a play from opposing teams, while conceding just 0.83 points per possession \u2014 the third-lowest number league-wide, and also the same scoring average for Portland on offense. In other words, the Blazers will have an extremely difficult time going against Wemby in P&Rs, and it\u2019ll be interesting to see how they adjust.<\/p>\n
Another way for Portland to generate offense is to crash the offensive glass. The Blazers\u2019 34.3% ORB percentage was 4th league-wide, but that\u2019s going up against the #1-ranked defensive rebounding Spurs team that grabbed 74.1% of its own boards. Expect Clingan and Robert Williams III to get physical with Wemby and cause as much havoc around the Spurs\u2019 rim as possible, especially if they have trouble generating other forms of offense.<\/p>\n
However, San Antonio could also counter by doing the same on the other end. The Spurs are also a good offensive rebounding team, grabbing 29.5% of their misses (9th highest). Interestingly, Portland actually struggles on their own glass, conceding 70.2% of rebounds to their opponents (21st). If the Blazers don\u2019t manage to clean up on their own end, then any offensive rebounds they grab will be rendered moot.<\/p>\n
San Antonio\u2019s corner three-point volume<\/p>\n
The Spurs\u2019 38.8% three-point volume is average (14th league-wide), but they\u2019re tied for first with New York in corner three volume at 12.9%. This is mostly attributed to Wemby\u2019s insane roll gravity, as San Antonio generates 13.8% of their shots from the corners when he plays, which is the highest in league history. The Blazers allow 10.2% of opponent shots to come from those spots, (right around the league average), but if they prioritize defending the corners, then it\u2019ll open up Wemby\u2019s rolls and drives from the Spurs\u2019 guards. San Antonio is also shooting 71.3% at the rim (90th percentile) on 36.4% frequency (87th), so Portland is stuck between a rock and a hard place.<\/p>\n
16.5% of Spurs plays come in transition (6th league-wide), and their offensive rating on such plays is 128.5 (8th). The Blazers allow almost the same amount of transition opportunities on defense (16.4%, 26th) with a defensive rating of 126.8 (19th). San Antonio should dominate in fast-break points, especially since they\u2019re also elite at preventing opposing transition opportunities, while Portland is bottom five in transition frequency. This could be a short series if the Blazers turn the ball over at their usual rate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the Spurs vs. Blazers series officially set, it\u2019s time for us to go through what each team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,6,687,471,3967,37729,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-711808","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-nba","11":"tag-portland","12":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","13":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","14":"tag-spurs-analysis","15":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116414856750856245","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711808","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=711808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}