As a reward for making the Playoffs for the first time in five years, the Portland Trail Blazers have the pleasure of playing Victor Wembanyama the 2nd-seeded San Antonio Spurs in the first round.
Can the Blazers hope to contain him, slow him down, or otherwise mute Wemby’s effectiveness?
On the latest We Like the Blazers podcast, Conor and I discuss that and much more (Wemby convo starts at 33:00, time stamped below):
- Brandon: Let me ask you a question… how the [heck] do the Blazers defend Victor Wembanyama? How do they defend him? Like, I’m not asking for like, ‘give me the schematics of what Splitter is going to do.’ And I also assume and hope that the Blazers and Splitter and Nate Bjorkgren and others are planning primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary looks, right? And that they probably don’t want to give everything up in the first game… but what’s the theory of the Blazers defense against a generational talent [like Wemby]?
- Conor: Is that Toumani Camara’s music right now? I like the idea of putting the athletic wings on Wemby and allowing Clingan or Robert Williams III to be that helpside rim protector.
- Brandon: So, if they did that, I’m not concerned about Robert Williams… Donovan Clingan I am concerned about.
- Conor: It’s always going to be the concern with [Clingan], is will he get played off the floor.
- Brandon: If you’re not putting him on Wemby, what is he doing?… Because he’s not, as of right now, fast enough to like rotate, rotate, rotate. I mean maybe you could just say, “hey, just stand in this spot and just don’t let anyone get here” and like if someone swings, swings, swings to the three that we just allow that to happen..?
- Conor: Are they going to deploy a zone?
- Brandon: Conor, I have an opinion about how you defend Wemby. You don’t. You do everything else. Let him get 50 points. Let him do whatever he wants. Defend everybody else and let him kill you because I don’t know if the Blazers can do anything against him. Conor, what do you think about this plan?
- Conor: I think if you have to choose a path, it’s not a bad it’s not a bad path to choose.
- Brandon: It sounds awful though!
We also talked about the Blazers’ depth, their defense, their strong close to the season,
their big win against the Suns to secure the 7th seed, and more!
Check out We Like the Blazers on any pod catcher or on YouTube… and note that we are beginning to record LIVE and in person with better audio and new camera, so please bear with us as we sort out the technology as it’s still not fully dialed.
