The Portland Trail Blazers' playoff-clinching win over the Brooklyn Nets on Monday night was marred by a horrific injury to center Jusuf Nurkic's lower left leg in the second and final overtime -- compound fractures to his tibia and fibula, ending his season.
The injury came at an especially bad time for the Blazers and Nurkic, who was enjoying the best season of his five-year NBA career and had missed just one game due to injury. Nurkic's 15.4 points per game had been Portland's third-highest average behind the high-scoring backcourt of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, while his 10.3 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game led the Blazers and he was also second at 3.2 assists a night.
How will his absence affect Portland's chances of maintaining home-court advantage in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs and winning a postseason series for the first time in three years?
How will the Blazers replace Nurkic?
Portland added center Enes Kanter for the stretch run, signing the free agent after he was waived by the New York Knicks. Kanter was brought in to back up Nurkic, but he will likely be Blazers coach Terry Stotts' first choice for replacing Nurkic in the starting lineup.
Kanter has been typically productive in 15 games for Portland, averaging 20.3 points and 13.6 rebounds per 36 minutes while shooting 54 percent from the field. In a starting role, however, Kanter's defensive shortcomings could be highlighted. He has never started regularly for a playoff-bound team, coming off the bench as a rookie with the Utah Jazz and during his two full seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
In particular, Kanter struggles to defend the pick-and-roll. According to Second Spectrum tracking, opponents have averaged 1.08 points per chance when Kanter is defending the screener in a pick-and-roll, highest of any Blazers player who has defended at least 250 such plays. By contrast, opponents averaged just 0.86 points per chance when Nurkic defended the screener.
Stotts' defensive scheme calls for the screener's defender to drop back into the paint on pick-and-rolls, protecting the rim. The 7-foot Nurkic excelled in that scheme, using his size to intimidate in the paint. Per Second Spectrum tracking on NBA Advanced Stats, the 55.9 percent of shots inside 5 feet opponents have made with Nurkic as a primary defender ranks in the top 20 among players who have defended at least four such shots per game. Between New York and Portland, Kanter has allowed 64.8 percent shooting to opponents in the same situations. And coming to the Blazers' scheme hasn't helped: Opponents are shooting 71.4 percent against Kanter in Portland.
Unfortunately, the center Kanter replaced in the Blazers' rotation (Meyers Leonard) shares similar defensive limitations. So while Leonard will likely return to regular action after playing just 28 minutes since the All-Star break, if Stotts needs a more versatile defender at center, second-year reserve Zach Collins will surely get the call.
Collins has been playing primarily at power forward since Kanter's addition, providing additional rim protection when the two play together. Portland's depth should allow Stotts to use smaller second-unit lineups with Collins in the middle, particularly once McCollum returns from a muscle strain in his left knee that will sideline him at least through the team's upcoming four-game road trip. Jake Layman, McCollum's replacement in the starting five, could then fill Collins' role as backup power forward.
I would expect Collins to finish most games at center in Nurkic's absence for defensive purposes, and there's a good shot he starts at center in the playoffs depending on matchups.
How will the Blazers' style of play change?
While Portland will miss Nurkic's rim protection, the team's defensive scheme isn't changing at this point. Offense could be a different story. Nurkic was heavily involved in the Blazers' attack as a screen setter and secondary facilitator. Per Second Spectrum, only the Nets' duo of D'Angelo Russell and Jarrett Allen has been involved in more pick-and-rolls this season than Lillard and Nurkic.
Because Lillard is such a dangerous outside shooter from well beyond the arc, teams often like to trap him with both pick-and-roll defenders, leaving the screen setter open on a short roll toward the free throw line. That leads Lillard to deliver the screener the ball, putting him at the controls of the Blazers' attack. That puts a premium on passing ability, and Nurkic excelled in that role this season after inconsistent results his previous two years in Portland.
When Kanter screens for Lillard, defenses can feel more comfortable trapping. Per Second Spectrum, they've done so on 19 percent of the ball screens Kanter has set for Lillard, as compared to 11 percent of Nurkic's ball screens. Particularly come playoff time, when opponents will have more time to put together a defensive game plan, they'll likely dare Kanter to beat them playing four-on-three rather than give Lillard any opportunity.
Since he can pop to the perimeter for an open 3-point opportunity when defenders trap Lillard, Collins again offers the Blazers more strategic flexibility as Nurkic's replacement. But he has averaged just 1.9 assists per 36 minutes this season, fewer than Kanter (2.8 in Portland), Leonard (3.0) and particularly Nurkic (4.2).
One possible option for Stotts would be using sixth man Evan Turner as a release-valve option against traps, since he's a strong playmaker. But Stotts has minimized the Lillard-McCollum-Turner trio, which has played fewer than 500 minutes together this season, because Turner's poor 3-point shooting allows defenders to stray from him beyond the arc.
Can Blazers maintain home court?
Playing without both McCollum and Nurkic for at least the next four games, Portland is fortunate to have a relatively easy slate of road games. Three of the four teams the Blazers will face on their last extended road trip (Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and Minnesota) are lottery-bound, though the Hawks have been a more difficult opponent lately.
Portland could get McCollum back for the season's final five games, three of which are against teams that will likely miss the playoffs (the L.A. Lakers, Memphis and Sacramento in the season finale). However, that stretch also includes a home-and-home pair of games with the Denver Nuggets, who are battling for home-court advantage throughout the Western Conference playoffs.
If the Blazers stumble, that could open the door for the Jazz to grab the No. 4 seed and home court in the opening round. Before accounting for Nurkic's injury, FiveThirtyEight's projections had Utah -- currently 2.5 games back in the standings -- finishing just a win behind Portland on average by virtue of a relatively easy final 10 games.
Sadly, this is the second time in three seasons with the Blazers that Nurkic has suffered an injury just before the postseason. In 2017, after leading Portland's second-half surge to the eighth seed, Nurkic broke his right fibula in late March, limiting him to one game in the Blazers' sweep at the hands of the Golden State Warriors. Portland outscored Golden State by eight during the 17 minutes Nurkic played, but was minus-13 in the rest of that game and lost the other three games by a combined 66 points.
This is a better, deeper Blazers team than that one, and Lillard has been one of the league's five most valuable players this season. Portland also won't have to face as difficult a first-round matchup as a Warriors team that came within one game of sweeping through the playoffs, granting that Kevin Durant also missed two games in that series due to injury.
Nonetheless, Nurkic's absence will fundamentally change the Blazers for the worse at both ends of the court. It's likely his replacements will struggle in the crucible of the playoffs, putting additional pressure on the backcourt of Lillard and McCollum to carry the load offensively. Without Nurkic, and possibly without home-court advantage, Portland will be hard-pressed to win a playoff series.