Portland runs much of the same beautiful, flowing read-and-react offense the Mavericks use, though the Blazers have superstars who punctuate it with flair -- or bust the hell out of it when they feel like doing their thing.
Damian Lillard has Curry range. C.J. McCollum is a fast-twitch phantom, always on the move, knees bent, ready to change direction. He might tote the league's deepest arsenal of dribble moves and in-between shots; McCollum hit an incredible 52.2 percent of shots taken between 8 and 16 feet from the rim, second-best among 105 rotation players who tried at least 1.5 shots per game from that ultra-tricky range, per NBA.com. There's a reason I've called him the NBA's Dean Malenko.
Jusuf Nurkic brought some needed brutality and scoring, and nearly matched
Mason Plumlee as a pick-and-roll playmaker. The Blazers' art is all great, though their new red jersey, with monochrome black lettering, shares the Kevin-Arnold-In-Gym-Class look with Indiana's yellow duds:
Maurice Harkless earns a bonus again if he shoots 35 percent from deep, per ESPN.com's Bobby Marks, raising all sorts of hilarious possibilities if he's on the border late in the season. Kevin Calabro is an NBA legend on play-by-play, and his partner, Lamar Hurd, is going to be an industry star.
