The Portland Trail Blazers reduced their 13-point lead in the fourth quarter against the Dallas Mavericks to one on Sunday night with just under two minutes of play. They had no momentum. No offensive flow. Luka Doncic cut their defense into pieces. It did not look good.
Then Damian Lillard looked at his watch. It was time. In the next minute, Lillard, who himself struggled in the fourth quarter but has an incredible ability to just call out of nowhere rhythm, scored seven straight points through the step-back 3-pointer that was the match winner . 32 seconds left:
This series serves as a microcosm for the current state of the Blazers: struggling to stay afloat, rescued by Lillard, who again plays superhero to keep Portland in the playoffs of the Western Conference, despite injuries to CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic.
Portland, which starts playing on Tuesday, is at 16-10 as the West’s No. 5 seed (that would be good enough for the No. 2 seed in the East, but that’s another problem for another day). It feels like a small miracle, as the Blazers are a defensive doormat, and that Nurkic and McCollum have missed 27 games together, and it feels like a losing game of four games is lurking around the corner forever.
But Lillard just does not want that to happen. The Blazers are working on a razor-sharp margin with exactly half of their games hitherto meeting the NBA’s “clutch” requirements, meaning they are within five points with less than five minutes of play, and in those few minutes Lillard scored 65 total points. Zach LaVine is in second place, shooting 58 percent off the field and 46 percent from 3. The Jackets, the most important, are 10-3 in the playoffs with a difference of 29 points.
Kyrie Irving recently lamented that all the odds are against the Nets. Yes, he said it honestly. A team with Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden apparently swims upstream. If Kyrie wants to know how to swim so as not to suck through the Western conference whirlpool, he needs to look at Lillard’s plight. With McCollum and Nurkic out, Lillard’s second-best player Gary Trent Jr. is out. If you want to make Lillard’s MVP business, this is a good place to start.
McCollum’s absence is especially felt. He had a career year, and along with Lillard, the Blazers were a scare at stake, with two of the best self – creating locksmiths in the world in the same backfield – number 5 in both the fourth quarter and points difference. With Lillard alone, these ranks dropped to no. 24 and no. 29.
It’s a statistical way of saying that the Blazers are making a habit of evaporating big clues in the third quarter or digging holes in the fourth quarter, but so far, Lillard – and it’s our sadness to see Carmelo Anthony’s fire festival in the fourth term. in Portland’s recent win over Philadelphia – was there to take them out. According to ESPN Stats and Info, the three-point Lillard hit against Dallas was his 33rd career trophy with less than a minute to play, the most in the league since arriving in 2012-13.
There was a Lillard cargo management conversation in Blazers circles. The argument that Lillard is not being pushed too hard is that the Blazers’ season seemed on the verge of death when McCollum and Nurkic came down. But Lillard kept it alive, 7-5 since McCollum went down and 6-2 over their last eight.
You can ‘t sit down for Lillard right now. In more than 26 games played on Tuesday, the Blazers outscored their opponents from 3,002 to 2,995. Do the math, and that’s a difference of seven points, or about 0.2 points per game. This is a bucket. One release. Portland’s margin of error is almost inconsistent, and Lillard scores the points that move on the game, at a level that few players, if any player, can match.
People will say that Lillard burned out in the playoffs last season, and that if he does not want Terry Stotts to have it happen again this season, he better think ahead. To begin with, I’m not sure Lillard was completely burned out. He took out the Lakers in Game 1. The Lakers ended up being just too much.
But if he burned out a few, I would attribute it more to the two-week Michael Johnson 200-meter sprint he had to go on, just to get Portland into the playoffs against Memphis. If the Blazers can win at a decent rate until Nurkic and McCollum return, they could find themselves with enough cushioning not to have to red Lillard on the point, while finishing with a faster series in the first round.
From there, you use your chances. And with a healthy Lillard, McCollum and Nurkic and a defense with the staff to perhaps play above his statistical profile, depending on the playoff game, this is not the worst chance in the world.