Article in The Athletic says our defense in the last 5 minutes of game is 9th in the NBA. Not sure if I’m allowed to post the whole article but here’s an interesting paragraph: Seven times this season, the Blazers have secured a stop in the finals seconds with the game on the line. Three times Robert Covington has recorded a steal. Twice Lillard has drawn a charge. Covington and Derrick Jones Jr. seamlessly switched on Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram during a two-shot, final possession in New Orleans. And once they were aided by luck, as Luka Doncic missed a wide-open 3.
could be that Portland is mostly stopping shitty teams in clutch time playoffs are different; most of the ways Portland wins games in the regular season seem to vanish against playoff teams. So far, Portland has only played 5 games against top-4 seeds in the western conference. They beat the Lakers by 8 three months ago. Their 4 losses have come by an average of 20 points. Portland has plenty of opportunity to get things right; 10 of their remaining 26 games are against top-4 seeds
