The Portland Offense
John Hollinger explains how last year’s Trailblazers put together one of the best offenses in the league:
The Blazers succeeded with the unusual style that Nate McMillan imported from Seattle. His teams have a unique signature — they regularly rank among the league leaders in offensive efficiency and offensive rebound rate while simultaneously finishing among the league’s slowest-paced teams. Most people think of offensive juggernauts as wild run-and-gun outfits, but the Blazers succeeded with half-court execution and second shots much as McMillan’s outfits with the Sonics did.
Portland played the league’s second-slowest pace, averaging only 89.3 trips per side, and that both muted the players’ averages and obscured how devastating they were offensively. The Blazers were deadly efficient, averaging 110.3 points per 100 possessions — ranking second only to Phoenix in offensive efficiency. Despite a lack of brand-name players, they placed ahead of both the Lakers and Cleveland.
People tend not to believe that Portland had a great offense last year. This is in part because the slow pace led to low per game totals, but also because of the perception that they lack effective offensive players beyond Brandon Roy. This in turn stems in part from the quirk whereby people tend to think of put-backs and such as a kind of second-class scoring. The reality, however, is that grabbing offensive rebounds that lead to easy points is a way of putting points on the board that count toward the final tally. “Believe it or not,” Hollinger writes “they did it while barely shooting better than the league average.” But the minimized turnovers and maximized offensive rebounds and that got the job done.
7 Responses to “The Portland Offense”
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October 10th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Does getting a lot of offensive rebounds mean that you’re a good offensive team or a good rebounding team? I think that people usually separate out rebounding and consider it a third phase of the game, so players like Dennis Rodman & Ben Wallace who lead the league in offensive rebounding are seen as bad offensive players but talented rebounders. Advanced stats count it as “offense” but that’s just a label.
October 10th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Cool. With Yao gone, the West needs a decent number two. Otherwise this cakewalk would get too boring.
Nate can have his stats. I’ll keep the trophy.
October 10th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
“I think that people usually separate out rebounding and consider it a third phase of the game…”
From a coaching perspective at least, this doesn’t track with what I was taught or what I teach. A defensive stop is a missed shot followed by a defensive rebound. Ergo, defensive rebounding is part of defense, and offensive rebounding is part of offense.
October 10th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Excellent post. Now we are getting somewhere. Efficiency is what it is all about. It doesn’t really matter if you play fast or slow, or somewhere in between, if you are more efficient than your opponent, possession by possession, you will win. The one thing in favor up tempo, though? More possessions. If you are building a statistical edge each possession, the more possessions there are in game, the better your odds of victory.
An example would be one of my favorite teams of all time. Nolan Richardson’s Arkansas teams of the mid-90’s. “40 minutes of Hell,” he called it, playing his teams. Arkansas beat teams by playing great defense. They pressed from the opening tap, gave up 85 points a game (more than anybody), but the tempo was so high, throughout the game, that Arkansas’ advantage, possession by possession, became ever greater. They had average talent, Carlos Williams! was their best player, but they made two finals, and won one. EVERYBODY thought they played wild, but to me, they played CONSERVATIVE.
@3Ape Man: “A defensive stop is a missed shot followed by a defensive rebound. Ergo, defensive rebounding is part of defense, and offensive rebounding is part of offense.”
Exactly. You are going to make an excellent coach, Ape Man, assuming you are young, and not already.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:03 am
One note on rebounding and the Sun’s offensive efficiency. I became a big fan of the Phoenix Sun’s because the D’Antoni-designed Nash-led offense was the best and most efficient I’ve ever seen, AND, it was beautiful. Exquisite. But the Suns were an incredibly frustrating team to watch, because they couldn’t rebound worth a shit, at either end. Nobody thought they played good D, but they did. Really good D. But they just gave up a too many rebounds and extra possessions. It killed them in the post season, when things slow down and there are less possessions, making each possession that much more valuable.
My guess is they hold some obscure record, like say, being they only team to get out-rebounded 78 times in a 82 game season and still win 60 games. Something like that. That’s how good their offense was. Is, I guess.
October 11th, 2009 at 2:24 am
The Suns also made some huge mistakes in who they kept, who they let go and who they drafted. But the talent was so good, they stayed good for a long while. That, and the Suns have the best trainers in the NBA.
As a Laker fan, the Suns scared the bejeezus out of me up until a few years ago. It remains to be seen if the Blazers are the new Suns.
By the by, the Lakers essentially trading Trevor Ariza for Ron Artest was beyond stupid.
Great posts on Western Conference hoops and cool comments to boot. I like this site.
October 11th, 2009 at 8:44 am
By the by, the Lakers essentially trading Trevor Ariza for Ron Artest was beyond stupid.
Not really. Trevor Ariza: 220 lbs. LeBron James: 265 lbs. Ron Artest: 260 lbs. And Trevor wanted more than the mid-level.
Artest is older and legitimately crazy, so it might not work out. But it wasn’t stupid. It was risky.