2020 NBA Playoffs Preview: Los Angeles Lakers Vs. Portland Trail Blazers

It’s not often that NBA fans look forward to a No. 1 seed versus No. 8 seed first-round playoff matchup, but such is the case with the Los Angeles Lakers against the Portland Trail Blazers.

Of the eight first-round playoff matchups, not a single one strikes more intrigue than Lakers versus Blazers. Can the struggling Lakers — who went just 3-5 in the bubble — hold off the surging Blazers, who are coming off of four straight victories to get to this point?

While the Lakers feature the potential 2019-20 regular season MVP in LeBron James, the Blazers feature the unanimous MVP in the Orlando bubble, Damian Lillard. Lillard has not only talked the talk, he has walked the walk. The 30-year-old point guard has emerged as a bonafide stud, averaging 37.3 points, 9.6 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game on 49.7 percent from the field and 43.6 percent from beyond the arc in the bubble.

That’s not even mentioning yet another one of his monster performances in Portland’s latest win, a 126-122 victory over the Grizzlies during the team’s play-in game. Lillard scored 31 points to go along with 10 assists to will his Blazers into the postseason as the eighth seed.

The win over Memphis marked the fourth straight nail-biting game for the Blazers, who faced elimination from postseason contention in the regular season finale win over the Brooklyn Nets. During Portland’s last four wins, the Blazers combined to beat their opponents by a combined margin of 11 points.

Meanwhile, the Lakers limped into the postseason after clinching the No. 1 seed early on in the restart. Los Angeles will look to improve a stagnant offense, one that ranked at or near the bottom of the league in every major statistical category in the bubble.

While there are many storylines and intriguing personnel matchups, the main storyline will likely be this: Can the Lakers outscore the Blazers? Likewise, can Portland overcome their weak defensive play to outscore the Lakers over a seven-game playoff series?

The Lakers will be paced by their two-man offensive duo of James and Anthony Davis, a tandem that displayed tremendous chemistry during the regular season to the tune of a combined scoring average of 51.4 points per game on shooting efficiencies of .493 and .503 percent each.

However, they struggled mightily in the bubble. James averaged just 22.0 points per game on 44.8 percent from the field. Meanwhile, Davis had the definition of an up-and-down performance in the bubble. While he turned in huge outputs during the Lakers’ three victories in the bubble (he averaged 34.3 points per game in those wins), he was pedestrian over his seven total appearances, averaging just 21.6 points per game on 38.4 percent from the field.

Meanwhile, the Blazers will be paced by the trio of Lillard, CJ McCollum and Carmelo Anthony — along with a dosage of Jusuf Nurkic. We’re all aware that Lillard was the MVP of the bubble, but McCollum’s performance was nothing short of heroic. Not only has he played with a fractured back, he cemented Portland’s playoff berth with a dagger 3-pointer late in the team’s win over Memphis during the play-in game.

But here is exactly where the personnel matchups become a major issue. The Blazers arguably have the top guard duo in the NBA and the Lakers do not have an answer for that. Due to the absences of Avery Bradley and Rajon Rondo — two strong defenders with a plethora of playoff experience — the Lakers will be forced to rely on Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to guard one of the two. While both Caldwell-Pope and Danny Green are strong defenders, they’re not going to slow down Lillard — and might have their work cut out for them when it comes to McCollum.

However, while the Lakers clearly lose the guard matchup — Green and Caldwell-Pope are not going to provide much on offense — they easily win in the front court. While James will be considered the point guard as the primary ball handler, he’s really the small forward — he’ll be matched up against Carmelo Anthony the entire series.

And while both players remain strong deep into their 17th seasons, there is no comparison here — James is a far superior player compared to Anthony. The 36-year-old Anthony can only hope to slow down his good friend as the potential regular season MVP goes into playoff mode.

As far as the other front court members are concerned, Nurkic and Zach Collins won’t be able to stop Davis. The only thing that can possibly stop the Lakers forward is Davis himself.

As TNT analyst Charles Barkley pointed out, Davis can appear to be tentative at times. He had just seven shot attempts after a 34-point explosion in the restart opener versus the Clippers and 11 shot attempts after a 42-point outburst against the Jazz. In the follow-up game after his disastrous nine-point, 11-attempt in a loss to the Thunder, he scored just 17 points on eight shot attempts in a LeBron-less loss to the Rockets in the following game.

In other words, if Davis is aggressive — because we know James will be — the Blazers have no answer for the dominant power forward.

Storylines and main personnel matchups aside, who’s going to win this series?

While the Blazers have more offensive fireworks — simply put, they score more in bunches due to 3-point shooting — the Lakers are better equipped for a seven-game playoff series.

This won’t come easy and the series won’t look at all like a No. 1 versus No. 8 playoff matchup. Keep in mind that this Blazers squad was in the Western Conference Finals last season and they dealt with major injuries all season long this year before the recent returns of both Nurkic and Collins.

The ability to dominate inside and outside with Davis and James will be too much for the Blazers to overcome. When you factor in that Los Angeles can actually play defense during tough stretches — something that Portland is not capable of — that will end up being the deciding factor in this seven-game series.

Prediction: Lakers in 6