The Biggest Takeaway From Portland’s 13-Game Winning Streak

The only thing that’s 100% certain about an NBA winning streak is that, at some point, it has to come to an end. Now that the 13-game winning streak of the Portland Trailblazers is over, what’s next for this team?

Outside of the fact that the Trailblazers catapulted themselves to the third seed in the Western Conference, and gave themselves a little bit of a cushion over the mosh pit of teams fighting for the remaining playoff spots, the biggest takeaway from the winning streak was the fact that Portland truly believes that they can advance to the Western Conference Finals — if not further — for the first time in almost two decades.

During their 13-game winning streak, Portland didn’t just win; they dominated many of their opponents. Their average point differential during their winning streak was over 12 points per game. But that stellar level of play didn’t just come from the usual suspects. Rather, what’s really encouraging about what fans saw during the streak is how the team played, as a whole.

Superstar point guard Damian Lillard admitted that some of his Portland teams in years past would play deferentially in moments of adversity, hoping that Lillard or his backcourt mate CJ McCollum would do something special to bail the team out of a bad situation. But Lillard pointed out how the guys sharing the floor with the dynamic guard duo have a greater sense of stepping up and making key plays of their own, making Portland a much more balanced, and much more dangerous team.

When NBA teams advance to the playoffs, those teams usually tighten up their rotation to the top eight guys. In that scenario, the Trailblazers have a core of eight guys whom they feel increasingly comfortable going to battle with.

After a slow start to the season, Lillard is averaging 26.6 points per game, which is the fifth-most in the NBA. McCollum is averaging 21.5 points per game, while shooting over 41% from three. Jusuf Nurkic, Al-Farouq Aminu, and Moe Harkless have all contributed big plays during the win streak. Evan Turner provides the scoring and Ed Davis provides the energy off the bench. Shabazz Napier is developing into a solid third guard, who can get hot at any moment. And that’s not even mentioning rookie Zach Collins, who’s shown flashes of potential throughout the season.

If the postseason started today, Portland would be the third seed in the NBA playoffs. But here’s where it gets interesting: assuming they dispatch of the 6^th-seeded San Antonio Spurs in the first round (Portland’s depth and athleticism would provide a lot of problems for this current Spurs lineup), the Trailblazers would face the Golden State Warriors in the second round. In any other situation, that would sound like a surefire recipe for going home. But during their winning streak, the Trailblazers beat the Warriors twice in just under four weeks, even after star forward Kevin Durant dropped 50 and then 40 points in each game. In other words: they took Golden State’s best punch, and still beat them.

Portland may have lost their winning streak, but what they gained was an understanding that, when they play as a team, the total can be greater than the sum of the individual players.