More Than a Sweep: Defining the Blazers’ Season

The Trail Blazers magical run through 2019 NBA Playoffs has come to a close, but the narrative from the season still needs to be processed and defined. Portland returned to the Western Conference Finals for the first time in nearly two decades only to be swept the historically-great Golden State Warriors.

From Jusuf Nurkic’s gruesome injury to the Blazers unlikely advancement in the postseason, NBC Sports Northwest’s Dane Delgado outlined his thoughts on how this year’s squad should be defined.

Delgado makes it a point that the postseason-only storyline could interfere with the overall arc of the Blazers’ 2018-19 campaign.

It will get lost in the jumble of history when folks, particularly those who didn’t watch this team all year, write about Portland in the years to come. From a distance, you can already see how this season will fade into a short, one line narrative:

Nurkic broke his leg with three weeks left in the season, and despite the best efforts of some fill-in guys, the Blazers couldn’t keep things going against the champions.

After dissecting how the quick reaction doesn’t cover the theme of Blazers’ season, Delgado delivers his version of what transpired.

This season in Portland was about camaraderie. It was about brotherhood. It was about being a team that become more than the sum of its parts by banding together. In some small way, it was about resisting the inevitability many have felt in the face of a league dominated by the Warriors. On paper the Blazers had no right to be in the WCF. On the court, they earned every square inch of parquet hammered into each other. From baseline to baseline, stanchion to stanchion.

With a 53-29 regular season record, the Blazers secured the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference Playoffs. Once there, Portland’s cast of contributors advanced past both the Thunder and Nuggets before exiting after four games against the Warriors.

You can read Delgado’s full story at NBC Sports Northwest.