Should Portland fundamentally change its shot selection in the postseason?
On the season, the Portland Trail Blazers rank third in the NBA in three-point attempts per game at 42.1 and third in three-point attempt rate at 46.8%. However, they are 29th in three-point percentage at 34.1%, making them the second-worst three-point shooting team in the league by efficiency.
In today’s three-point-heavy NBA, that is a difficult combination to overcome. Portland is taking one of the highest volumes of threes in the league while converting them at one of the lowest rates. Further downstream, that helps explain why the Blazers rank just 23rd in offensive rating.
It raises a fair question about whether the team’s play style and shot diet are part of the problem.
Generally speaking, there are two main ways to approach three-point shooting. One is to be a lower-volume, higher-efficiency team that only takes the best perimeter looks. The other is to lean fully into volume, trusting that even if the percentage is not elite, the sheer number of attempts will still create enough makes for the math to work in your favor. Most teams fall somewhere in between, blending those approaches to different degrees.
But for a team like Portland, which leans so heavily into volume, the efficiency has to be at least respectable for that strategy to pay off. If a team is going to rank near the top of the league in three-point volume, it at least needs to be somewhere around middle of the pack in percentage to actually see the benefits. Instead, the Blazers are in a position where their high volume of three-point attempts may be actively hurting the offense rather than helping it.
With only four games left in the regular season, it is probably too late to make a major stylistic adjustment. But in the play-in tournament, where games tend to slow down and become more methodical and half-court oriented, those issues could become even more magnified. And if Portland advances into the playoffs, that style shift would be even more pronounced.
When that time comes, there is at least a case to be made that, based on the data and the way Portland currently generates offense, the Blazers may need to rethink how they are approaching the perimeter game.
That appears to be the main culprit with the offensive struggles this season.