The Portland Trail Blazers play a unique style of defense. Instead of defending opponents aggressively and forcing turnovers, they are more reserved and focus on contesting shots.
Perfecting this defensive scheme, along with Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum‘s individual improvement, made the Blazers a top-ten defense in the league last year. This was a huge step forward for a team who finished 21st in defensive rating in 2016-2017.
Here are a few defensive stats from 2016-2017.
- Steals per game: 7.0
- Blocks: 5.0
- Second chance points: 12.