Crucial games loom, but the Trail Blazers face offensive challenges with key players sidelined, jeopardizing their playoff push.
The Portland Trail Blazers need to be at their absolute best in every single game from here until their season ends. That applies to the final handful of regular season games as they battle for play-in positioning. It applies to the play-in tournament itself, where they’ll have to win one game, maybe two, just to advance. And if they do make it that far, they’ll obviously need their best in the playoffs, too.
Nobody expects the Blazers to make a deep playoff run if they get in at all, but that’s beside the point. The reality is that every single game matters the rest of the way. Every game carries significant weight, and Portland has to be at its best. There’s no more margin for error. There’s no more losing to teams they have no business losing to, like what happened Friday night against the Dallas Mavericks. At this point in the season, that was just unacceptable.
But unfortunately for Portland, these high-stakes games are here, and they’re going to be without key pieces for some of them, if not all of them.
The team has already been without Shaedon Sharpe for a while now, and Portland’s biggest issue is offense. Sharpe is exactly the kind of player who could help solve that problem, given that he’s arguably the most dynamic scorer on the roster. His return remains a question mark.
Now, after that ugly loss to Dallas, the Blazers are also without Jerami Grant for at least some period of time because of a calf strain. There’s still no indication how long he’ll be out. It could end up being a short-term absence. It could also be something that stretches through the rest of the season. Right now, that part is still unclear. But he’s another key offensive piece.
With Sharpe, there was supposed to be more clarity around this point, and that still hasn’t come. So what we know right now is simple, and it’s that every game matters for the Blazers, and there’s a real chance they’ll be shorthanded for some of, if not all of, these massive games.
If Portland is going to keep its season alive and make the playoffs, it starts now. The guys who are available have to step up.