J-Speaks: Another Monumental Game-Winning Three-Pointer By Trail Blazers' Lillard

On May 2, 2014, then first time All-Star Damian Lillard hit the game-winning three-pointer with 00.9 second left in Game 6 of the First-Round of the NBA Playoffs to advance the Portland Trail Blazers past now reigning Kia MVP James Harden and the Houston Rockets 99-98 for their first postseason series win since 2000. Coming into the 2019 NBA Playoffs, the Portland Trail Blazers were trying to end a 10-game playoff losing streak, which consisted of an embarrassing sweep to the No. 6 Seeded New Orleans Pelicans. As he did five postseasons back, the Lillard was in the same position and he ended “Rip City’s” recent playoff blues again at the hands of a former Kia MVP. 

With the score tied 115-115, the now four-time NBA All-Star selection dribbled just past the halfcourt line near the Trail Blazers’ logo and then pulled up right in front of Oklahoma City Thunder’s Paul George and hit the game-winning three-pointer at the final horn from about 37-feet to give the Trail Blazers a 118-115 win in Game 5, defeating the Thunder 4-1 in the First-Round. 

Lillard finished with a Trail Blazers’ postseason record 50 points, with 34 coming in the first half going 17 for 33 from the floor with seven rebounds, six assists and three steals. His game-winning three capped a 28-10 finish after the Trail Blazers trailed 105-90 with 7:45 left in the fourth quarter. 

“Damian’s performance was probably the best performance I’ve seen in person,” Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts said. “I’ve seen 50-point games obviously but the way he carried the team in the first half with CJ [McCollum] in foul trouble. The magnitude of the last shot obviously to win a series. The fact that he has now won two series on a single shot, or two shots I should say, it was quite a performance.” 

Lillard’s game-winning triple also not only set a franchise record was his 10 connection in 18 tries, the second most made threes ever in an NBA playoff contest. 

“I didn’t want to put it in the referee’s hands,” Lillard, who averaged 36.3 points in the three games at home in the series and was mobbed after hitting the series clinching triple said during his postgame presser. “If there was contact or maybe they get away with contact, or I end up having to take a tougher shot because there was contact and they don’t want to decide the game. So, I was standing there looking at the rim and I was like, ‘This is a comfortable range.’” 

Lillard also said that he felt comfortable taking the game-winning three where he took it thanks to the practice shots with his trainer Phil Beckner following the team’s 111-98 win in Game 4 on Sunday night. Beckner told him after those shots that he was going to hit one from that range. 

“When I was standing there I was like, “I’m gonna shoot it,’” Lillard said about the game-winning three. “He (George) was a little bit off of me and I was like, ‘There’s enough space for me to just raise up and shoot it for game,” and at the last minute he stepped up towards me a little bit and I was like, “Okay. I just gonna pound dribble, sidestep, and raise up, you know.’” 

“I just had to let it fly, you know. Shoot the ball high in the air to give it a chance and that’s what I did.”

After hitting the game winner, and before being mobbed by his teammates, Lillard waived goodbye in the direction of the Thunder bench in his way of getting the last word against the 2017 Kia MVP Russell Westbrook and the Thunder, who for much of the series had been doing a lot of trash talking on the floor, trying to intimidate Lillard and the Trail Blazers, especially after their 120-108 win a week ago that cut the Trail Blazers series lead to 2-1. 

Lillard had mentioned during his postgame presser that Thunder reserve guard Dennis Schroder last Friday night did a rendition of Lillard when he gets going offensively in the fourth period where he points to his wrist saying its “Dame Time.” Those tactics in the end did not work and Lillard said his waive after his game-winning three was him saying goodbye to them.

“The series was over, you know. That was it. I was just waving goodbye to him,” Lillard said of the moment. “I think after Game 3 Dennis Schroder was out there pointing to his wrist. They was out there doing all these celebrations and doing all this stuff, and we kept our composure, and after one win that was what they decided to do, and we was just like, ‘Ok.’” 

“What we want to do is win four games and then when we win those four games there’s not going to be nothing to talk about. So, that was that was.” 

For the Trail Blazers, Lillard’s game-winner not only got the Trail Blazers into the Semifinals and knocked off a team in the Thunder that swept them 4-0 during the regular-season but it wiped away the painful memory of getting swept by as mentioned earlier the No. 6 Seeded Pelicans, who did not even make the playoffs this spring. 

This win also showed the kind of determination, focus and sheer will to not let their postseason failures rip the fabric of their team apart, which could have easily happened. 

Lillard and his staring backcourt mate CJ, McCollum, who battled foul trouble in Game 5 to score 17 points could have pointed fingers at each other or allowed the constant questions about one of them getting traded penetrate their clubhouse, which they did not. 

They death of longtime owner Paul Allen just three days before the start of this past regular-season or the subsequent uncertainty about the franchise possibly moving could have shaken the team. That did not as they had their 14^th 50-plus winning season going 53-29. 

The loss of starting center Jusuf Nurkic to a broken leg in their 148-144 double-overtime win versus the Brooklyn Nets (42-40) on Mar. 25, which overshadowed them clinching a playoff birth could have wrecked them, especially with the postseason just weeks out. 

Simply put the Trail Blazers just kept the train moving, especially in the wake of not having McCollum for a stretch of ten games because of a bruised muscle in his knee sustained just nine days earlier in the team’s 108-103 loss at the No. 7 Seeded San Antonio Spurs.  

So, it should be no surprise that they were not phased after their 120-108 loss in Game 3 at the Thunder, where they hit 15 for 29 from three-point range, or Westbrook, who had 33 points and 11 assists was pointing and hollering expletive language at the Trail Blazers on the hardwood, or when they saw George put in a double-clutch reverse slam dunk at the buzzer with the game already decided. 

All the Trail Blazers did in Game 4 was simply play. There was no trash talking from them. No finger pointing to each other. No speaking to the press about who needed to do what. 

McCollum, who led the Trail Blazers with 27 points going 10 for 20 from the field, including 5 for 9 from three-point range in the 111-98 win in Game 4 on Sunday night on TNT to give them a commanding 3-1 series lead said that they team decided collectively that they were not going to do any talking to no one not wearing their “Rip City” uniforms.

What also happened in Game 4, where Lillard, who finished with 24 points and eight assists on 7 for 19 shooting struggled in the first half of the Game 4 scoring just seven points on 2 for 8 shooting, the rest of the team picked up the slack. 

Starting forward Al Farouq-Aminu, who spent much of the series guarding either George or Westbrook had 19 points and nine boards on 4 for 9 from three-point range, while fellow starting forward Maurice Harkless, who also had the assignment of checking George in the series had 15 points and 10 rebounds, with two steals and three blocks. 

There were three specific plays in Game 4 that really put the Trail Blazers focus into context. There was the triple made by Aminu right in front of the Thunder bench right before the half helped them to a 50-46 lead at intermission. Lillard hit a three-pointer off an Enes Kanter screen on Westbrook that was part of his 15-point eruption in the third quarter. McCollum had a huge block on the break on George and moments later hit a three-pointer that kept the moment on the side of the Trail Blazers. 

That block was part of a suffocating defense the Trail Blazers put on the Thunder holding them to 37.5 percent shooting on the night. While George had 32 points, 10 rebounds and six assists on the evening, much of his scoring came from the free throw line on 12 for 14, as he went 8 for 21 from the floor on the night, despite hitting 4 for 10 of his threes. Westbrook had just 14 points with nine rebounds and seven assists on 5 for 21 shooting, including missing all seven of his field goal attempts in the second half, the worst shooting half of his playoff career. According to ESPN’s Royce Young, who covers the Thunder overheard one of the Trail Blazers’ assistant coaches telling the team to not send help to Westbrook because they want him to continue to shoot.

“We got swept last year. It was embarrassing and everybody talked about it,” McCollum, said after Game 4 to the media. “It was on TV every day. I went on TV and they talked about us getting swept. They talked about me getting traded. They talked about how we (Lillard) can’t win together, you know, all that stuff.” 

McCollum also said that he was able to get over going home early because he got a chance to see his brother player over in Europe because they were swept last season by the Pelicans. He told his brother that he was not going to be able to make it. 

One Trail Blazer who is happy to be not just only be part of a team advancing to the Semifinals but just being in the playoffs at all is now starting center Enes Kanter, whose signing has in late February has been a major reason the Trail Blazers were able to maintain themselves when they lost Nurkic. 

The 26-year-old Kanter, who started the season with the New York Knicks was only available after being waived because the team wanted to play their younger players because they were not going to make the playoffs gave the Trail Blazers gave the team a major inside presence both scoring wise and on the defensive and offensive glass. 

The former Thunder big man was a major reason they won Game 1 of this series 104-99 back on Apr. 14 registering 20 points and 18 rebounds. In the close out game of the series on Tuesday night, Kanter had 13 points and 13 rebounds, and played the second half with an injured left shoulder that he hurt in after taking a hard fall on it late in the opening half. After the game showed his gratitude for the opportunity he got to sign with the Trail Blazers. 

“First of all, I have to definitely thank the Knicks for waiving me,” Kanter said to laughter from the assembled press after the series clinching win. “That would never happen if they didn’t waive me, so I want to appreciate the whole Knicks organization. Then I want to appreciate all the teams that didn’t pick me. I tried to actually sign with lots of teams that weren’t really interested.” 

Kanter added, “I’m glad that Dame (Lillard) and GM Neil [Olshey] texted me and I picked Portland. It was definitely amazing. It was a blessing.” 

He added about his injured shoulder that he had wrapped in ice during his postgame presser, “We’ll see what happens.”

The game-winning triple in 2014 and on Tuesday night to end the Rockets’ and Thunder’s seasons respectably by Damian Lillard will be the thing that is remembered by fans of “Rip City” and rightfully so, especially since it put in the rearview mirror the disappointments that came before with the 14-year opening round playoff drought and 10-game losing streak over two seasons leading into the 2019 NBA Playoffs. Those amazing moments do not happen if the Trail Blazers did not make the choice to look themselves in the mirror. Take ownership of their past failures and decide to do something about them.

Led by Lillard and McCollum, and Coach Stotts, the Trail Blazers looked those past demons right in the face and took them down. 

The question now is as they move forward can they take that same attitude into the Semifinals where they will face the winner of the No. 2 versus No. 7 First-Round tilt between the Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs, that the Nuggets lead 3-2 heading into Game 6 on Thursday night. If the Nuggets win and close the series, they would have homecourt advantage. If the Spurs win the series in seven games, the Trail Blazers will have homecourt in that best-of-seven Semifinals series.

Regardless of what happens, the Trail Blazers are in the Second-Round and are more than ready to take on either opponent. 

Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 4/22/19 3 p.m. edition of “NBA: The Jump,” with Rachel Nichols, Byron Scott and Amin Elhassan; 4/24/19 1 a.m. edition of “Inside the NBA,” presented by Kia on TNT with Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, and Shaquille O’Neal; www.espn.com/nba/team/schedule/_/name/por;  https://www.nba.com/games/20190423/OKCPOR#/video/boxscore/recap; 4/24/19 www.espn.com story, “Kanter Plays Through Separated Shoulder in Win,” by Kevin Pelton; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Portland_Trail_Blazers_seasons; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damian_Lillard.