Mike Ehrmann / Associated Press
If we’re honest, the Portland Trail Blazers’ 100-93 Game 1 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night is what you want it to be, the rare single outcome that works in the service of more than one spin, both less and major.
This is about making the Blazers’ late-game shot, and how their record does not reflect their threat level. Damian Lillard armed them with a mythical crunch-time weapon, a superstar who is roughly within reach when the ball is bound. They can win this series.
This is about the Lakers, incomplete and vulnerable. Two megastars have in Anthony Davis and LeBron James guarantees them nothing. They have to worry about their guard rotation, their brick-and-mortar three-point shots, Davis’ tendency to take junky long twos and his own lack of range outside the arc. They could lose this series.
This is about how the Blazers and Lakers completed one game, a single, lone matchup in a line of, maybe seven. It has little to do with what happens next, a preliminary round that counts for something and yet means nothing. The Lakers have not played in nearly a week, on the heels of a four-plus-month hiatus. The Blazers will witness Lillard eventually missing from 35 feet or longer.
This is about Game 1 being a middle ground, a reason for Los Angeles to reflect and Portland to rejoice, but not evidence of something deep or memorable for either.
The Lakers are not 5-of-32-from-distance gravelly. They are 20-or-31-of-the-foul line (64.5 percent) min. Danny Green (2-of-8 from three) will shoot better. Alex Caruso (1-of-6 overall) will shoot better. Kyle Kuzma – in fact still competing on defense – has shown that he will hit three more threes (1-of-5). Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will not go 0-of-9 every game, and even if he does, head coach Frank Vogel will not always explain himself in the wrong way for Caruso in the streak.
The Blazers have a revamped CJ McCollum and can only get away with placing Carmelo Anthony and Gary Trent Jr. on LeBron so many times, and it will not be so often. Ditto for playing Jusuf Nurkic and Hassan Whiteside at the same time. Nurkic has extended his reach behind the rainbow, but that frontcourt falls at the clunkier end of the spectrum, even as the Lakers Davis play in tandem with another major.
This is about LeBron wearing so many hats in another playoff game, without finding a one-size-fits-all. On the one hand, a 23-point, 17-rebound, 16-assist (playoff career high) triple-double objective is obscene. On the other hand, his own efficiency – 9-of-20 in general, 1-of-5 of deep, 4-of-7 of the benevolent streak – and just-first-mindset may be part of the problem . The Lakers need him to search for his own shot sooner and more often.
Then again, if he will not set the table, who will? (Also: Focusing only on scoring LeBron is always an oversimplification.) The Lakers could not consistently bury their tears with him feeding them. No one else will do it better. More than that, Los Angeles has no one to spell him.
Rajon Rondo is cleared to play after recovering from a fractured right thumb, but has not taken the floor since March 10, more than five months ago. Davis is one who dominates in the stream of crime, and not one who creates it. Caruso is overextended in the role of an initiator. Drying Dion Waiters longer than 73 seconds is not the answer.
This is about Game 1 being so many things for so many different people, depending on the many lenses through which it can be viewed. And when checking so many notes, first and foremost, there is no consensus.
All we are sure is that, no, the Blazers and Lakers are not working through a typical first-round series. This would perhaps say more about the circumstances than the way they correspond. De NBA impressed in close to the regular season, but these teams are still followed for 24 sequences after a lengthy dismissal, each of the key players.
That is different from abandoning Game 1 altogether. Everything already discussed is fair game.
Without question, the Blazers do not feel like a normal no. 8-seed, only because Nurkic, her second-best player from last season, did not return from compound fractures in his left leg until the Disney World restart. And unfortunately, the Lakers have a thin margin for error than your squad-of-the-mill first place. They were not too deep to begin with, and their best point defender, Avery Bradley, opted for the bubble.
Finally, something small that we have seen from this series is more about these Lakers. Their struggle is an extension of what has placed them at Disney and, to some extent, throughout the year.
Sy ranking 21st in three-point percentage in the regular season. Their problems with shooting outside are not new. They place 18th in efficiency for half court for the year and are second-to-last since entering the bubble. Their highly anticipated performance of Game 1 is also not new.
Whether the Lakers can iron out these wrinkles before they actually come back to haunt them is a matter of course. They do not have the staff to turn into killers and sweet flamethrowers, but they are not without options.
Dotting the entire Davis-at-the-4 charade can be a good place to start. The Lakers offense has been with him at power forward all year, but double-sized combinations have not been as successful at the rebound. Los Angeles is a minus-48 combined in the 97 minutes he played with JaVale McGee.
That movement alone does not change everything. But it’s something. And the Lakers need to do something – not something drastic, but something just as painful, obviously smarter than what they’re doing right now.
Staying the course and hoping for better nights out may not be the option. It can not end with case against the Blazers. It will definitely be in potential matchups with the Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Clippers as Denver Nuggets later in the playoffs.
And yes, it can now also matter, to escape this series as well.
Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference or Cleaning the Glass. Salary and cap-hold information via Basketball Insiders, Early Bird Rights and Spotrac.
Dan Favale occupies the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale), and listen to his Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by B / R’s Adam Fromal.
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