First-round series figures to be engaging
Golden State is the heavy favorite, but Portland has been red hot past six weeks
OAKLAND — One Warriors regular-season game remains, but it doesn’t matter. The real season — the two-month journey that will fully dictate how this historically talented team will be remembered — begins this weekend at home against the eighth-seeded Portland Trail Blazers in Round 1.
Warriors coaches have already plunged deep into their scouting of the Blazers. So why don’t we? Here’s a guide to a series that’s expected to be lopsided, but still packs intrigue.
Why’d Portland take a dive this season?: One year ago, the Blazers surprised many, losing
LaMarcus Aldridge but winning 44 games for the fifth seed, squeezing by the injured Clippers in Round 1 and, despite going down to the Warriors in five games, at least making Round 2 briefly interesting. They were on the rise and expected to take a step this season.
That step was backward. The Blazers struck out on their offseason moves — Evan Turner at four years and $70 million hasn’t worked out, former Warrior Festus Ezeli hasn’t played a game — and dropped well below .500 in the season’s first few months as their defense cratered.
A deadline deal for bruising center Jusuf Nurkic and a late-season surge from Damian Lillard equaled a strong close, allowing Portland to snatch the eighth seed away from Denver. Optimism beyond this season has returned. But, in general, it was a disappointing year in Portland, and the Blazers seems slightly less dangerous than the team the Warriors met last May.
Season series in review: Warriors 4-0: The Warriors beat the Blazers by two and 23 in Portland and by eight and an astounding 45 points in Oracle. The season series was a demolition. But it comes with a caveat: All four games were played before the end of January. At their last meeting, the Warriors were 41-7, and the Blazers were toiling away at 21-28. The low-point was Feb. 28. A loss to the Pistons sunk them to 25-34. Since then, the Blazers are 17-5.
Will Nurkic even play?: The Blazers traded for Nurkic — a talented but unproven young center who pouted his way out of Denver — on Feb. 12. He debuted three nights later and emerged as a force immediately, averaging 15.2 points, 10.4 rebounds and 1.9 blocks over the next 20 games, 14 of those Blazers wins.
But in late March, after going scoring 19 points, grabbing 11 rebounds and making three blocks in a huge win over the Rockets, it was discovered that he’d suffered a fibular fracture. He’s been out ever since, and his status for the first round is in serious doubt, though he’s been lightly shooting around lately and is reportedly hoping to return at some point against the Warriors.
“We’re preparing for them with or without him,” coach Steve Kerr said. “But they’re very different without him. So it’s a little trickier.”
Nurkic balances out the Blazers on both ends. He’s a 7-foot post threat with respectable range. His presence would likely force the Warriors to stay bigger more than they’d like or at least present a challenge for Draymond Green when Kerr goes small. Nurkic gobbles up 12.4 percent of available rebounds, the 13th-most among regularly used big men in the NBA. That’s a strength that pokes at a Warrior weakness. But without Nurkic, there’s little for Golden State’s interior to fear.
X-Factor — Klay Thompson’s defense: This is about as good of a backcourt matchup as you’ll find. Stephen Curry is Stephen Curry, an MVP and the best of this bunch. But the thing that has separated Thompson (a multiyear All-Star) from both Lillard and C.J. McCollum (All-Star snubs) is Thompson’s superior ability on the defensive end. That’s monstrous in this series.
Lillard’s first 51 games this season were pretty productive but pretty inefficient. He averaged 25.7 points but did it on 43 percent shooting and a sub-standard 34.6 percent from 3. He was never in a groove when he faced the Warriors. But he’s in a groove now. Over his past 24 games — since the All-Star break — Lillard is averaging 29.7 points on 47 percent shooting and 41.3 percent from 3.
Thompson will shoulder the bulk of that Lillard challenge, while also sliding over (and maybe even starting on) McCollum. In his fourth season, McCollum averaged 23 points on 48 percent shooting. McCollum ran an incredible 119.2 total miles on offense this season, 10 more than anyone else in the NBA, per its stat-tracking system. Thompson ran 87.3 miles defensively, the ninth-most in the league.
What makes a successful series for the Warriors?: It’s irrelevant who leads the Warriors in scoring or how the series is won. They just want it done in four or five games, without injuries, giving them a lengthy break before the second round, where the competition will ramp up significantly.
Quotable: Lillard to reporters in Portland: “We’re going in there to take a swing. We’re coming in there to try and shock the world.”
Prediction: Warriors in