The Portland Trail Blazers continue to work on their identity and connectedness in a season that is widely understood to be more about player development than wins and losses.

As they take on the Golden State Warriors on Saturday night, the Blazers will be focused on an additional area of focus – getting out to a better start.

The Blazers have gotten off to slow starts of late, digging themselves into early holes that require a furious second-half comeback.

Portland has been outscored in the first half 67-54, 61-49, 65-49, 74-63, and 69-54 in their last five games. That's not uncommon among teams that haven't won a lot of games, but the Blazers have bounced back and won the second half in all of them. Unfortunately, that's only added up to a 1-4 record in that span.

Head coach Chauncey Billups addressed the slow starts earlier this week.

“We have a lot of cool dudes who try to ‘cool’ their way into the game, and that hurts us,” said Billups. “I try to talk to them about that all the time. We want to have a hit-first mentality.”

It's not uncommon for young teams to struggle on either end of a game. Learning the mindset to start (and finish) in the NBA is a skill that can be learned. The Blazers need to show more urgency on the court in the first half of games, and especially in first quarters. Feeling your way into a game is fine, but someone needs to step up and be the guy that the team can throw it to and get a bucket.

Billups doesn't think the Blazers have that guy yet.

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“We don't have an ‘alpha'-type dude on our team,” said Billups after the Blazers' one-point loss to the Washington Wizards on Tuesday. “It just is what it is. We've got some hell-of-a players…guys that are going to be All-Stars in this league. But right now, we don't have that dude that you can throw it to, and he'll get us going for the first four or five minutes of the game.”

That may be true, and it may not. Anfernee Simons has certainly shown that he's capable of taking games over for the Blazers. But Simons has done most of his damage late, including scoring 22 points in the fourth quarter of that loss to the Wizards. He's also been among the Portland players that has struggled to find his rhythm early.

But the slow-start issues go beyond just having a certified bucket-getter in the first quarter. Turnovers have been a major problem early in games of late, which leads to fastbreaks, points in transition, and early deficits.

The Blazers haven't played as poorly of late as their recent record, where they've lost 8 of their last 9 games, would indicate. They've shown resilience and fight, but it just hasn't been enough to get out of their self-imposed deficits.

All that can change with a better start against the Warriors in San Francisco on Saturday night. The Blazers hung with Golden State until the final buzzer last week – falling after not being able to challenge a missed out of bounds call with less than 10 seconds remaining.

Portland will be looking for a little revenge, but they need to learn to start strong and win the first half before they can win the game.