Portland Trail Blazers Barely Surviving Without Jusuf Nurkic
Jusuf Nurkic will be out for the rest of the regular season due to injury. How has that affected the Portland Trail Blazers as they fight to clinch a playoff berth?
The Portland Trail Blazers' 117-107 win over the Houston Rockets on March 30 was a turning point, for better and worse.
For the better, it was a win over an elite Western Conference team, led by Damian Lillard's 31 points and 11 assists. It also capped off a stunning 13-3 March. Their .813 winning percentage was the highest in the league that month.
Lastly, it created a 1.5-game cushion between their eighth-place standing and the ninth-place Denver Nuggets.
However, it was also a turning point for unfortunate reasons.
The following evening, the Blazers announced that center Jusuf Nurkic would miss the rest of the regular season due to a right leg injury.
This leaves the Trail Blazers without a starting-caliber center just as they were looking to wrap up the eighth seed in the Western Conference playoffs.
The loss of Nurkic is made even worse by the dearth at center the team was already suffering from. Festus Ezeli has missed the entire season due to left knee problems. Ed Davis was shut down after 46 games after undergoing left shoulder surgery.
But Davis was struggling even when he was playing.
Davis averaged 2.1 fewer points, 1.7 fewer rebounds, and 0.3 more turnovers per 36 minutes in 2016-17 compared to 2015-16.
Portland's most stable center was shipped to Denver for Nurkic. Mason Plumlee played in every game — regular-season and playoffs — in which he was a member of the Trail Blazers.
Now the team would have to go the final seven games of the season without a true center.
April started well enough, with the Blazers beating the Phoenix Suns 130-117. The win got them to .500 (38-38) for the first time since they were 12-12 in early December.
However, the team has since gone 0-2, falling to the Minnesota Timberwolves and Utah Jazz in back-to-back road games.
The Portland Trail Blazers are working hard with what they have. But there is no doubt that Nurkic is sorely missed in the team's rotation.
The team's field goal percentage has dropped 4.7 percent in Nurkic's absence. In the 20 games he's played, the team shot 48.4 percent from the field and 41.9 percent from three. The Blazers have shot 43.7 percent from the field and 33.7 percent from outside in the three games since.
The decline can be attributed to opponents focusing on perimeter players due to the lack of a post threat. Big man can lay back around the rim while wing defenders body up the outside shooters.
Lillard is one of the players most adversely affected by the loss of Nurkic. He's coming off of a March that was good enough award him Player of the Month.
In his 20 games with Nurkic — spanning from mid-February to March — he averaged a team-high 28.7 points per game on 47.3 percent shooting from the field and 42.4 percent from three. He also produced 6.1 assists and 4.9 rebounds per game in that span.
For the first time in his career, @Dame_Lillard is the Western Conference Player of the Month!
Press Release » https://t.co/xQKTHjZu3G pic.twitter.com/BC1XR0GLRD
— Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) April 3, 2017
However, without Nurkic, Lillard has averaged 24.0 points per game on 33.3 percent shooting overall and 31.0 percent from three. These numbers come despite Lillard having another 31-point performance against the Suns.
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Rebounding has also taken a sizable hit. The team averaged 45.4 rebounds per game with Nurkic, 35.4 of which were defensive boards. Without him, the team is averaging 34.7 total rebounds and 25.0 defensive boards per game.
On defense, they're giving up more points in the restricted area. With Nurkic, the team allowed 58.2 percent shooting at the rim. That was fifth-best in the league.
Since then, opponents have shot 66.3 percent at the basket. That's ninth-worst in the NBA.
The Trail Blazers are also back to struggling with defending the above-the-break three-pointer. As stated before Nurkic's injury, his presence really helped the team defend the perimeter.
Opponents' three-point shooting percentages from the wings and straight-away dropped 8.9 percent between October through February and their March hot streak.
Now that Nurkic is gone, the team is back to struggling. Portland is now allowing a league-worst 45.7 percent from above the break.
On the bright side, their mid-range defense has marginally improved. The team allowed opponents to shoot 38.6 percent from mid-range with Nurkic active. Without him, they allow teams to shoot 35.0 percent from that area.
C.J. McCollum has also managed to somewhat hold form in April. He's still shooting 41.7 percent from three on the month, though that is 4.9 percent worse than his scorching March.
Al-Farouq Aminu is currently on a five-game streak of double-digit scoring performances. This includes a 20-point game against Minnesota where he went 4-for-7 from three. His work in Minneapolis earned him a starting spot against the Jazz in place of Meyers Leonard.
Aminu managed to get 11 points in the losing effort.
Maurice Harkless had 13 points against Phoenix and 17 against Minnesota. He only scored two points against Utah. However, he's still the leading field goal shooter in the rotation at 59.1 percent.
Noah Vonleh started the month well with back-to-back 12-point outputs. His game in Phoenix saw him notch a double-double with 13 boards. However, he went 0-for-4 on the night in Salt Lake City.
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He's still shooting 58.8 percent from the field and grabbing a team-high 6.0 rebounds per game.
One quirky team stat is that Portland is averaging 6.1 fewer turnovers per game without Nurkic. They averaged 14.8 per game with him and are averaging 8.7 without him. Portland only had two games with single-digit turnovers in 20 games with Nurkic.
They've already had two this month, with five turns against Minnesota and seven against Utah.
Portland is now a half-game ahead of Denver in the standings. With Portland idle until Thursday, the Nuggets could tie again if they defeat Houston on Wednesday night.
Portland holds the playoff tiebreaker over Denver. However, with the loss of Nurkic, the margin for error is demonstrably slimmer than when the Bosnian Beast is on the floor.
The team will surely hope to turn things around in their final four games of the season, all of which are at home.
