Portland Trail Blazers: How far will Portland fall after C.J. McCollum’s injury?
Taking a closer look at C.J. McCollum’s injury, his expected absence and how far the Portland Trail Blazers might fall in the Western Conference
The good news is that C.J. McCollum isn’t expected to miss extended time after injuring his knee in the team’s Saturday night loss to the San Antonio Spurs. The bad news is that even just a week or two absence could cost the Portland Trail Blazers in the Western Conference playoff race.
Officially, McCollum will be reevaluated after being diagnosed with popliteus strain in his left knee – per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. However, there’s still a chance that he could miss more time, depending on how his knee reacts to rest or how bad the strain is.
Considering that the Blazers 42-27 and two games ahead of the 7th seed, there’s a chance that this injury costs Portland home-court advantage in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.
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Assuming that McCollum will miss at the very least a week, that means the Blazers will be without half of their dynamic backcourt for at least three games, and probably more. McCollum is part of the reason why the Blazers have been in the thick of a top 3 seed in the West for the majority of this season, and will be missed – whether he’s out for only a week or into the playoffs.
The good news is that Damian Lillard is almost exactly the player you’d want in this exact situation. He has the ability to takeover for a week and dominate the way the Blazers are going to need their lead man to dominate.
He could win a game on his own, and we’ve seen him do it on multiples occasions – even in the playoffs.
Nevertheless, who’s to say how far the Blazers will fall in the standings over the next week or so. It should be noted that in the lone game that McCollum has missed this season, the Blazers are 1-0.
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As playoff seeding becomes even more important over the next few weeks, this injury to McCollum is almost as big of a development as we’re going to see in the final stretch before the playoffs.