Over the course of the last decade, the Trail Blazers seem to do their best postseason work as an underdog.
When they defeated the Houston Rockets back in 2014 to win their first playoff series in 14 years, they did so as the lower seed. And when they returned to the conference semifinals two years later as the five-seed, they advance by virtue of besting the four-seed Clippers. And while they took their first-round series as the three-seed back in 2019 by defeating the six-seed Thunder in five games, they had to upset the two-seed Nuggets in order to make their first trip to the Western Conference Finals in almost 20 years.