Nobody wants the Blazers in the first round

One scout said he believed Portland would end up playing the Lakers in the first round, though Gregg Popovich’s San Antonio Spurs have been terrific even without LaMarcus Aldridge. The scout said he views the suddenly healthy Trail Blazers, who added big men Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins, as more like the fifth seed, maybe the sixth, in the West instead of the eighth. And a team with Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, Carmelo Anthony and Nurkic is probably a scarier matchup than the Grizzlies.