The Portland Trail Blazers are back home after a five-game road trip to take on the Golden State Warriors. The banged up Blazers are coming into this game as losers of three straight games. The Warriors lost
their last contest to the Minnesota Timberwolves and currently sit in the Western Conference’s eighth seed, four spots above Portland.
What You Need to Know
Portland Trail Blazers (9-16) vs. Golden State Warriors (13-13) – Sun. Dec. 14 – 6pm Pacific
How to watch via antenna or cable: See your options on the Rip City Television Network, Seattle Viewing Guide
How to watch via streaming: BlazerVision in Oregon and Washington; League Pass everywhere else
How to listen: Trail Blazers Audio Network
Trail Blazers injuries: Scoot Henderson, Damian Lillard, Matisse Thybulle, Blake Wesley, Jrue Holiday (out); Donovan Clingan, Robert Williams III, Yang Hansen (questionable)
Warriors injuries: Al Horford (out)
What to Watch For:
The return of the bigs? All three of Donovan Clingan, Robert Williams III and Yang Hansen are listed as questionable for the contest. Any of the three would be a major boost for the Blazers, who have found themselves forced to play small in their absence. The Warriors are a team that struggles on the glass due to lacking a true center, especially with Al Horford out of this game. Any of the three bigs would give Portland a massive boost on the boards, an advantage they could potentially leverage to a win.
Moving the ball. The Warriors are eighth in the NBA with 27.4 assists per game. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, the Blazers sit 27th with 24.7 per game and will be playing this game without a true point guard yet again. Deni Avdija is able to help in that role when he is on the court, as shown by his 6.2 assists per game, but when he sits the ball stops moving as well.
Golden State’s 9.6 steals per game, good for 4th in the league, will put a lot of pressure on Portland’s ball-handlers. That will only make the Blazers’s lack of point guards more obvious. An aggressive Warriors defensive front could turn Portland over early and often and turn a close game into a blowout quickly.
What Others Are Saying:
Fansided’s Bradley Rowland talks about the Warriors finding success by making defense their identity.
In 421 minutes with Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler on the floor together, the Warriors boast a defensive rating of 105.4 that should be qualified as elite in any context. That pairing does have some offensive limitations but, when surrounded with other competent defenders, Green and Butler have proven to be ceiling-raisers, both on their own and collectively.
Stephen Curry is the other top-tier player for Golden State and, while he does not have a defense-first pedigree, the Warriors have been consistently able to build quality defenses, even when Curry is on the floor. He raises the ceiling of the offense in an almost indescribable way, and it is also worth noting amid Golden State’s 13-12 record that Curry has missed nine games.
