Damian Lillard Helps Keep Trail Blazers' Dark-Horse Dreams Alive
PORTLAND, Ore. — Damian Lillard wasn’t going to let the Portland Trail Blazers fold.
The Blazers needed more out of him after two previous losses in Los Angeles, and he delivered on Saturday, scoring 32 points to lead the way in a 96-88 Game 3 win that cut the Clippers’ series lead to 2-1.
But it wasn’t just Lillard’s scoring that lifted the Blazers and put off what had seemed to be an inevitable first-round exit. It was the never-say-die attitude that he instilled in his teammates even as the Clippers threatened late.
“Guys just aren’t ready to go home,” Lillard said after the game. “It was about two minutes left, I think there was a dead ball, and I huddled the guys up and said, ‘Are you ready to go home? If we don’t finish this out, that’s where we’re going to be headed.’ That’s the situation for us and every other team. This is it.”
The Blazers’ high-scoring backcourt of Lillard and C.J. McCollum combined for 59 points on 21-of-42 shooting, creating enough offense to pull away in the closing minutes of a game they controlled but never truly put away until late.
It all starts with Lillard, whose performance in the playoffs has been the subject of much scrutiny since his electric showing in 2014’s first-round series against the Houston Rockets, the last time the Blazers advanced past the first round.
“The start he got us off to, I think it lifted everybody up,” Blazers coach Terry Stotts said. “Because he didn’t shoot the ball well in the first two games and the fact that he got us going just encouraged everybody like, ‘We’re going to be OK.’ As far as the other things, his leadership—I’ve spoken about this before—his leadership in the huddles, not letting up, encouraging guys when he wasn’t in the game, allowing C.J. to have the game that he had. Just a lot of different things that you need from your best player.”
McCollum, fresh off receiving the NBA's Most Improved Player award, was spectacular in his own right. All season, he's been a potent secondary scorer, forcing defenders to choose between he and Lillard, and on Saturday he scored 27 points of his own.
The Blazers had become something of a popular upset pick before the playoffs.
They were the only lower-seeded first-round team that could really even be called a dark horse, since it’s all but impossible to imagine the Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs or Oklahoma City Thunder losing in the first round.
There are just enough question marks with the Clippers—namely their lack of depth and Blake Griffin’s inconsistent performances since coming back from a quad injury that sidelined him for a large chunk of the regular season—to give Portland a fighting chance.
That dark-horse status suits these Blazers just fine. This is a group that wasn’t supposed to make the playoffs in the first place after losing every starter except Lillard over the summer. Instead, they won 45 games and captured the fifth seed thanks to their high-powered backcourt and a solid roster of secondary players.
But it all starts with the two guards, especially Lillard.
“His leadership for them really set the tone,” Clippers guard Jamal Crawford said of Lillard. “He was taking charge, he was all over the place, flying all over the court but him being very aggressive early definitely set the tone for them and the rest of the team followed.”
The difference in the Blazers’ performance Saturday versus the first two games shows the importance of their guards. Portland’s game plan was largely the same. The defense was solid, just as it was in the first two games. The shots Lillard and McCollum took were good ones, just as they were in the first two games.
This time, though, those shots went in. That made it easier for everything else to fall into place, the rest of the game to be less of an uphill battle and the Blazers to look like a team that belonged in the playoffs.
“We showed some fight,” Lillard said. “We showed that we’ll answer the call. I think after the first two games I said, we competed hard and we had a chance, but we didn’t shoot the ball well, so the score didn’t really say how the game went. And tonight, we played the game the same way. Obviously, the energy was up. We had more of an alertness to us. And we made shots. That’s the difference tonight.”
They will need to show more of that fight to turn this series around and pull off what is the only chance at a Western Conference first-round upset. But Saturday night was an encouraging reminder that the fight is there to be found.
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