NBA 2017-18 Season: Top 5 Teams in Isolation Scoring
Isolation plays are considered selfish and risky by a vast majority of basketball experts in touch with the game. But the sheer skill and speed of modern day ball handlers coupled with the quickness to beat their defender off a quick first step, has made this style of play an instant crowd pleaser.
There's something about a dazed defender grasping on thin air while stumbling on his ankles in the open floor, which drives the arena crazy.
The ability to make plays and score individually with no help in sight is an art form mastered by a few gifted ones in the league. The slideshow that follows consists of teams rather than players who have been blessed with a bunch of ball-dominant playmakers, and so have based their primary offensive flow around the concept of isolation plays, drawing huge returns from a domain left untouched by many.
Iso-ball was on its way out of the NBA until these teams (one in particular) reinvented it last season. While the rest of the league was moving away from isolation basketball because of its low rate of return, they played more isolation possessions than anyone else.
Let's take a look back at the top 5 teams from the last season, when it comes to isolation scoring.
#5 Portland Trail Blazers - 8.5 points per game
When your team is stacked with Iso specialists such as CJ McCollum, Damian Lillard and Shabazz Napier, there's no surprise to the fact that a lot of plays will go through them facing off a defender one-on-one on an island and scoring with no help. In fact, McCollum leads handily in average seconds per touch and average dribbles per touch. So, safe to say, he's kind of a ball-hog.
The Portland roster conjured 9.3 isolation possessions per game during the 2017-18 season (which was the 6th most in the league), scoring an efficient 0.91 point per possession.
Dame and McCollum combine to make one of the most lethal backcourts in the league. This was clearly visible last season as they finished their campaign just one game shy of a 50-game winning season, drastically improving from a mediocre 41-win season and finishing No. 3 seed in the mighty Western Conference.