Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard is gassed
Chris Phillips
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Playoffs?
Dame recently laid it out bluntly about the team’s performance against playoff teams. To paraphrase, the Blazers stink. On the year, the Blazers are 11-18 against playoff teams. Even worse, over their last 11 games against playoff teams, Portland is 3-8 and currently on a four-game losing streak to playoff teams.
That stat doesn’t bode well, considering the playoffs are just around the corner. It’s even a tough road up to that point as 16 of their next 19 games are against playoff teams. Part of the reason they have so many games against playoff teams is that there are more teams in the postseason. This year the NBA agreed to expand the playoffs to 10 teams in both conferences.
The first six teams will be locked in, but teams seven and eight will have play-in games. The breakdown is simple. Team 7 will host Team 8, with the winner earning the seventh seed. Team 9 will host team 10, with the winner going on to play the loser from the 7-vs.-8th game. That winner becomes the eighth seed. Currently, the Blazers are the 6th seed; they have no margin for error.
The Future
So, what does all this mean? Players that log heavy minutes usually end up getting injured. The worst injury from being overworked is an injury to the Achilles tendon. Most of the stars in the league play in the low 30 minutes range. It’s enough for them to dominate and impact the game while not being overworked. When players start logging more than 35 minutes per night, it significantly increases the risk of injury.
Stotts needs to rest Damian when he can. Possibly his best course of action is to give Dame some DNP-coaches decision or reporting an “injured” hamstring or quad. Dame won’t like it, but sometimes a coach has to protect a player from his self.
Stotts and Olshey need to say to their star, “You can continue to play and flirt with the possibility of injury. Maybe an injury severe enough to take you out for the rest of this year and into a portion of next year. Or you can rest, and we can make a stronger push towards and in the playoffs.”
The Blazers will be a playoff team this season; that much is almost all but guaranteed. The question is, what will they do in the playoffs? If the playoffs started today, Portland faces the Clippers. If the Blazers overtake the Lakers, they will face Denver. Or if the Blazers fall back, they’re in the play-in games set to take on Memphis at least once, maybe twice, or San Antonio. Then the Blazers open a series against Phoenix.
Damian Lillard everytime he checks out to the bench pic.twitter.com/Ni7oRhRLVu
— Stepback Harden ® 💙🤍 (@3headedgoat13) February 27, 2021