Through the first week of the NBA season, everything is rosy for the Portland Trail Blazers in Rip City. It’s been only two games against non-marquee opponents, but the Blazers are undefeated, registering a dominant beatdown of the Phoenix Suns and a grind-it-out win over the Sacramento Kings.
Naturally, as one of the seven remaining unbeaten teams in the league, the Blazers moved up in the latest NBA power rankings released by NBA.com writer John Schuhmann on Monday. After beginning the season at the No.
19 spot in the countdown, the Blazers have moved up to No. 15 following their 2-0 start.
Among his takeaways about Portland, Schuhmann — who is always fantastic with his stat work while covering the league at large — highlighted the scoring prowess of the Blazers’ starting lineup through week one.
The Blazers led the opener 21-0. Two nights later, they scored the first 15 points of the third quarter. The reserves got a piece of that action, but the starting lineup (featuring Ja Morant and Damian Lillard in the backcourt) has outscored their opponents by 30 points in a little more than 18 minutes. It’s helped that the opponents have shot just 1-for-12 from 3-point range against it.
Schuhmann also gave Portland the special honor of being the “team to watch” this week. Given Portland’s small sample size, I’d think he selected the Blazers there because he’s eager to evaluate the legitimacy of this hot start, and the Blazers will face some solid tests in week two.
Portland — There are three Week 2 games between teams that are undefeated through Week 1, and the 2-0 Blazers are involved in two of the three. They’ll visit the 3-0 Lakers on Tuesday and host the 3-0 Grizzlies two nights later, also visiting Utah on Saturday afternoon.
The Blazers face the undefeated Los Angeles Lakers on the road at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night. Superstar Luka Doncic should be in action for the contest as he looks to follow up his 52-point performance on Sunday. That’ll be unusual for the Blazers; as Schuhmann noted, Doncic has sat out of his last seven matchups against Portland.
