By BECKLEY MASON
Published: December 5, 2013
PORTLAND, Ore. — While everyone in the East is trying to figure out what is going so sideways with the Knicks and the Nets, the West is puzzling over how the Portland Trail Blazers, who won 33 games last season, are off to a 16-3 start, the best in the conference. If there was any question that their start was a fluke, the Blazers answered by dealing the Indiana Pacers their second loss of the season on Monday and outgunning the Oklahoma City Thunder, 111-104, on Wednesday.
Skepticism over the Blazers’ first six weeks is fair. They are not particularly athletic and are only passable on defense. Most of their scoring comes from jump shots, a sometimes frail foundation on which to build a winner. But Trail Blazers Coach Terry Stotts has seen such a system work before: in 2010-11, when he was an assistant in Dallas and helped build an N.B.A. championship offense around the 7-foot forward Dirk Nowitzki’s shooting range and the Mavericks’ crisp ball movement.
In Portland, it’s LaMarcus Aldridge who, like Nowitzki in his younger days, has fought the perception that, because he is 6-11, he should not take so many jump shots. Aldridge is just as deadly as Nowitzki from 20 feet. He almost single-handedly brought the Blazers back against the Thunder in the third quarter, making 8 of 9 shots — all jumpers from his favorite spots on the court: the top of the key and the left block. He finished with 38 points, 13 rebounds, 5 assists and no turnovers.
With Aldridge and Damian Lillard, last season’s rookie of the year, the Blazers have playoff talent. But what makes this team intriguing is how elegantly the rest of the pieces fit together. General Manager Neil Olshey and his front office did not upgrade only in talent; they also found players who enjoy one another on and off the court.
Earl Watson, the Trail Blazers’ backup point guard, has circled the N.B.A. block more than once, playing in seven cities and for a dozen coaches in his 13-season career. Even he has been blown away by his new team’s chemistry.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before because I think more than half the team is new. But we jelled so quickly.”
The conversations in N.B.A. locker rooms tend to drift toward cliché. The Blazers used just about every one that referred to unselfish play, consistency and the embracing of roles. But the look in their eyes and the looseness in the locker room imbued the banalities with profundity.
As Lillard walked through singing Next’s slow jam “Too Close” in a fragile falsetto, Aldridge joked that it sounded like a little girl being attacked by a dog.
A notoriously reticent player in years past, Aldridge called this the happiest time in his career.
“Guys are playing so unselfish — our team chemistry is unreal right now,” he said. “Coach Stotts gives us the freedom to play loose and make plays, and guys aren’t abusing it.”
Like Aldridge, guard Wesley Matthews endured the bad times, and he is cherishing this young season.
“The fact that we were so bad, recordwise, last year, we grew,” he said. “A lot of the guys that were here last year, experienced all that losing last year, we’re still here. When you’re on both ends of the spectrum, you have no choice but to be close.”
In any professional environment, an infusion of new personnel usually leads to a feeling-out period in which everyone searches for a role. As in any office, that process can create friction when a player does not accept his designated role or resents an opportunity afforded to a teammate, or both. Amazingly, the Blazers said, there were no formal discussions about what each player’s role would be.
That Aldridge and Lillard would be the stars was obvious, but Watson said: “Everyone accepts their role, and the roles were never defined. It’s the truth of our team, the DNA of our team. The way we fit together, it’s like the perfect storm, so to speak.”
That chemistry comes through on the court, where the spacing is outstanding because there is little overlap in the places each player likes to use on the floor.
Forward Nicolas Batum epitomizes this dynamic. The second-highest-paid player on the team, Batum is nonetheless content to make an impact in more subtle ways than point totals.
Along with being the team’s best defender, he often initiates the offense with his passing from the corner and top of the key, and his 3-point shooting and precisely timed cuts to the rim provide counterpunches when opponents load up against Aldridge and Lillard.
Despite their huge wins, the Trail Blazers have plenty of work to do before ranking as contenders in the loaded West. They still have serious concerns on defense, and there will be nights when the shots do not fall. But they are clearly enjoying one another, and the victories, now.
“It’s the design and makeup of the team,” Matthews said. “They handpicked the team. It’s fitting Coach’s system, and they bought in — we really bought in. It’s hard not to buy in when you’re playing this well.”
