As part of a weekly podcast series with RipCityRadio's 620 AM co-hosts Andy Bunker and Taylor Danforth, we sit down to talk about the little things helping win games, Damian Lillard's passing game, Dwight Howard to Portland, and a blown chance to talk about yoga pants. AvailableHEREdirect, or on iTunesHERE-(Yoga Pants in podcast only)

How Cliches are Winning Games for the Trail Blazers

在上个月的开拓者14 games and found themselves the victor in 11 of those contests. As of this writing the Trail Blazers are getting ready to play the Houston Rockets at home, a game that could see them reach .500 for the first time since they were 4-4 back in November. With a Blazers win tonight, it's fair to assume that the talk of "overachieving" will start to break out and hopes will be buoyed by a team that sits at 27 wins, beating the Las Vegas line of 26.5 by the All-Star break. How did they get here though? This was a team that at one time was 11-20 and looked destined for a lottery pick between sixth and tenth. The easy answer is they "got better." But where and how is a lot more fun to to look at.

Dane Carbaugh of Blazers Edge/SBNation/HardwoodParoxysmfame posted earlier outlining where the Blazers fail on defense (full disclosure: it was my own selfish request that prompted Dane). While there wasn't anything to utterly surprising in his findings for anyone familiar with this Blazers team- not good in the pick and roll or (re)covering the 3-point line after a drive and kick or sustained ball movement- Carbaugh does a great job laying out the who, what, when, and why certain things are happening with concise points and great video breakdowns. A lot of what had been going on with the Blazers defensively was due to a few reasons; new personnel, a lack of playing time together, lackadaisical effort, and inconsistency in intensity.

Coincidentally enough,Joe Freeman of The Oregonianpenned a piece about the rise of the Trail Blazer's defense over the last few weeks- and how the team went about addressing those shortfalls. The long and short of it is this; while the Trail Blazers had time here at home, 7 games in 17 days grants practice time midseason when it's at an absolute premium, they sat down and watched tape. The good. The bad. The ugly. And everything in between.

""We just talked about being a top defensive team and what it would take," Lillard said. "They addressed it right before film, they broke down the numbers and what we had been doing. And then they showed us film of what we looked like."

There was sloppy pick-and-roll coverage. Shoddy help defense. Shaky on-ball focus. Uneven attempts at contesting jump shots. Lackadaisical effort."

The results have been hard to argue with. DeMarcus Cousins, Andrew Wiggins, and Nic Batum came into Portland and shot a collective 8-for-50 and 35 points. Cousins by himself is averaging nearly 27PPG - and he was arguably the hottest player in the league coming into that game. Holding him well under average by stymying and frustrating him from the field is no small task, let alone to manage to do that to such a vast array of players night after night. Only three players have managed to score more than 28 points against the Blazers in this span, DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry (both in the same game), and James Harden- who limped to box score with 33 points on 7-for-18 shooting in a blowout loss for the Rockets.

Since January 10th the Trail Blazers have the 7th best defensive rating in the league at 101.3, and how they've improved isn't really clear until you take a deep dive into the numbers. At first glance it's a little difficult to parse out the small differences that populate every box score. If you look at just the points allowed you would see that up until January 10th, the Trail Blazers were allowing 102.9 points per game while playing at a near league average pace (97.28). While not the worst in the league, it was only good enough to carry them to a 15-24 record against the 7th easiest schedule in the league. Since then, the Trail Blazers are holding opponents under 100 points per game (99.2), which has allowed them to rattle off those 11 wins in 14 games. Where and how are they making these gains on the defensive end? Little by little, they've tightened up. In that span, teams are down in points in the paint (PITP,-1.1PPG), 2nd chance points (-0.3PPG), and opponent points off of turnovers (-2.3PPG). While they may seem like relatively small amounts, the equivalent of nearly four points per game is being saved in just these instances. In Freeman's article, he noted the physicality that the Blazers have developed lately.

""We really went at each other," Allen Crabbe said. "Even in competition games of 2-on-2 or 3-on-3, we went hard. It reinforced that we needed to be more aggressive."

这是一件事显然体现itself in the stats. The Trail Blazers went from one of the worst teams in the leagues in terms of steals 6.4SPG (28th) to what would be a middle of the pack rating 7.9SPG (15th). Another way to put it, the Blazers are generating nearly 25% more steals per game than they were previously. The Blazers have taken to pressing more on the pcik and roll game, opting to hedge a bit harder on the wing pick and roll, while weak side defenders are digging down harder from time to time on early penetration and/or looking for steals. For a clear example of the former, take a look at this clip from the Houston game.

在这里你可以看到杰拉尔德·亨德森得到物理, grabbing, reaching (probably fouling), but not giving an inch to Harden on the initial probing drive. Tim Frazier jumps up early and bumps hard, continuing the physical presence. Meyers Leonard makes sure to get a least a little bump on the cutter running the outside, and then Henderson steps back in, bumps, and pokes the ball loose where it ultimately gets picked up by Lillard to trigger the fast break. As for the break itself, we'll get back to that in a bit. The defense here is something that plays out in numerous clips. The Blazers are attempting to set the tone, physically and mentally, and you can see it manifest itself on the court - even quantify it to an extent- and it's just a part of what has been triggering this rise.

As for the latter, where the weak side defenders are either digging down into the lane to help or playing he passing lanes for steals, here's a clip of Lillard particularly but the Blazers as a whole playing fantastic team defense.

Here Lillard makes an early mistake but communicates well with Noah Vonleh to change the coverage on the fly- not great- but there are worse switches in the NBA than this. Kemba Walker opts not to take on Vonleh and wings the ball to Batum on the wing. Batum is met by Al-Farouq Aminu who bodies him up from the time he catches and keeps attached to him until Batum is forced to give it up off balance. Lillard has sunk into the corner, but not so flat as to allow a clean passing lane to the corner 3, and is able to jump up and get a hand on the ball and make the steal. Physicality and opportunism seem to be something these young Blazers are growing accustomed to, with the results mostly positive so far.

The flip side to this argument is that the Blazers are fouling a bit more. However, they're not leading to free throws at this time so the trade off is really negligible (opponents are getting less than one additional free throw per game). Definitely worth keeping an eye on though if the Blazers start finding themselves in early foul trouble often enough.

How about the other side of the ball? There's a couple things going on here. First the emergence of Gerald Henderson. Up until January 10th Henderson was averaging under 7 PPG and 16 MPG. Since? Nearly 10 PPG, in 20 MPG, and he's shooting over 50% from the field and 41% from 3-point range. Combined with Allen Crabbe they bring over 20 PPG off the bench and they score in various ways. Henderson is much more of a slasher, taking nearly 25% of his shots inside where he's been finishing at an astonishing 79%! Mix in his 47% midrange shooting and you can see how getting him more minutes has been helpful for the Blazers.

The other notable individual change is with Damian Lillard. Anyone who's been watching lately has noticed that Lillard has been racking up assists like crazy. Lillard has 30 total double-doubles of assists and points, 12 of them have come in just this season- 6 of them in the last 14 games. To say he's in a groove as a playmaker would be an understatement. What's worth looking at are some of the pother changes in his offensive game. In the mid January Lillard was shooting very well, rebounding from a sub par start to the season. However, over Lillard's last 4 games he's shooting under 40% from the field and 30% from 3. Meanwhile, he's taking more 3 pointers and driving less. Here's where it gets a little more interesting, Lillard is passing more than usual but not at his highest rate of the season. What's interesting here is that Lillard's Potential Assists are sitting at 8th in the NBA (potential assists are passes that lead to a shot, where if the shot was made it would be an assists) meaning he's putting teammates in positions to score more often. Increased passing rate, plus increase in scoring positions from teammates and you can see how he's stacking up assists more frequently.

The increases and changes from those two, coupled with the steady growth and play of CJ McCollum, Allen Crabbe, Maurice Harkless, Mason Plumlee, Ed Davis, and Meyers Leonard- the Blazers have the third most wins in the past month. As mentioned earlier, the Blazers are getting more steals, this in turn is leading to more points off of turnovers (+2.9 PPG) in that span. If you factor that in with the decrease (-2.3 PPG) the Blazers have swung over 5 PPG in their favor just from points off of turnovers. Considering the Blazers shaky record in games decided by 5 points or less, this could be huge on a nightly basis. As one would imagine, with the increase in points off turnovers (for) both fast break points (+1.2 PPG) and points in the paint (+1.9 PPG) have increased. This helps explain the Blazers 107.9 Offense Rating over that time span. Increased looks generated by Lillard. Better, more efficient offense from Henderson. More looks in the open court or early offense sets. It all comes together with the foundation of the "Stottsfense," allowing players to make plays on their own- backed up by all the little things to play a complete game of basketball.

At this point, the Trail Blazers are better than advertised before the season began. We're well past that point of the debate. However, at this time I think it's fair to say that the Blazers can't out talent opposing teams on a nightly basis. They've shown how slippery this road can be. Mess up on the little things and you can stack up losses quick. As good as Lillard and McCollum are they don't have enough scoring power to bail the team out on a nightly basis if they fall short in a host of other areas. What this does say is that the Blazers are in a much better spot than anticipated. Ahead of the curve as it were. After the All-Star break there should be a better idea of how Neil Olshey feels about this current roster and the future. The good news is, unless something drastic happens the Trail Blazers won't be losing 4 of 5 starters anytime again soon.