The Portland Trail Blazers are off to a hot 8-3 start. And the We Like the Blazers podcast is here to talk about it!
In this week’s episode, hosts Brandon Mullen and Conor Bergin dive into Portland’s back-to-back wins over the Oklahoma City Thunder and a central question: Is the hot start for real? To answer that question, they also discuss what for real means for the 2026-27 Trail Blazers.
Conor: The Blazers are real. Short sample size be damned. It’s 11 games, six of them were on the road.
Brandon:
We’ve already seen like several different versions of the team, by the way.
Conor: Yes, exactly. We’ve seen them win in different ways. We’ve seen them go against really good teams. We’ve seen them go against that kind of middle-tier, really solid team, and we’ve seen them take care of business against the lesser teams that they’re supposed to beat. I think what we’re seeing is sustainable, just with how they play defense and how many weapons they have on offense… I think that we need to understand what the definition of real for this team is. I think that is them being in that second tier in the West. If you’re wanting the Blazers to win like 65 games and be the No. 1 or No. 2 seed, I think your expectations are a little too high and you’re getting over your skis after this hot start. But are they a really good, competitive team that I think is gonna be able to go on some hot streaks this year and maintain a consistent, quality level of play? … Yes.
Brandon: The Blazers are second only to the Lakers in points per game in this young season, which I think says something about their offense. … How many games does it take for a sample size in the NBA to be statistically significant? How many games does it take for you to look at a pattern and be able to say, ‘okay, we can extrapolate this pattern out, it means something’? Conor, we are getting to that point. I believe that that magic number for a lot of stats is something like 15, 16, 17 games. So we’re getting pretty close, and we are going to reach the point at which we don’t just say it’s early in the season, and we just say, ‘well, the season has begun and this is what’s happened so far.’ So the small sample-size theater, I think, it’s the last time we can actually say that. So, I’m gonna choose to think that it’s real. I agree.
The conversation about the Blazers’ realness begins at the 21:50 mark. But the podcast gets into much more, including Sidy Cissoko’s impact in the starting lineup, Scoot Henderson’s early-season struggles, and Robert Williams III playing a back-to-back, among other topics.
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