Nothing about this season has been conventional for the Portland Trail Blazers.
While Damian Lillard, LaMarcus Aldridge, Nicolas Batum, Wesley Matthews and the rest of Rip City were supposed to be fairly competitive in the tough Western Conference, they weren't supposed to be this good. A nine-game winning streak that would leave them in the No. 2 spot was almost unthinkable.
Yet here we are.
While the Blazers can get rolling offensively when Lillard is hitting his perimeter looks and Aldridge is doing his thing with turnaround mid-range jumpers, that was expected. It's the defense that has been much better than anyone dreamed, jumping from a 109.2 defensive rating in 2012-13 (No. 26 in the league) to 104.5 this year, according to Basketball-Reference.
And it's all due to a change in mentality.
The Blazers aren't content to use the typical scheme employed in the Association, one that revolves around packing players into ...
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Article written by Adam Fromal