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Eric WoodyardESPN
The Portland Trail Blazers dropped five points to the Chicago Bulls on Saturday night with 8.9 seconds, which the NBA fans got to know as ‘Lady Time’.
Damian Lillard struck out a 37-foot 37-foot shot with less than ten seconds left to put the Blazers within two points. The Blazers then tied up Bulls star Zach LaVine and won the springball – which eventually ended up in Lillard’s hands.
Lillard continued to drill a buzzer-beat-step-back 3 over the long arms of Lauri Markkanen to beat Chicago 123-122.
“This one is special because in these situations where we are five, I think, with 11 seconds left, these are the moments when the winning team thinks they have finished the game properly,” Lillard said 14 points in the fourth. “And the opposing team is discouraged.”
Not Lillard.
Blazers coach Terry Stotts struggled with words to describe Lillard’s clutch genes after the win.
“It was innate. It was given by God,” Stotts said. “He was born with it, and you can not learn it.”
Lillard finished with a game-high 44 points, 9 assists and 5 rebounds and hit his third-highest in the career game, including the playoffs. According to ESPN Stats & Information, this is the most in Trail Blazers history.
For Lillard, it was also his 35th career with 40 points, more than double any other player in franchise history. Clyde Drexler led the next with 17.
Lillard’s teammates Enes Kanter and Gary Trent Jr. was not surprised by his heroism. Inside the fanless United Center in Chicago, Kanter was among the first of his teammates to greet him with a hug. Kanter said he is’ used to that shot ‘, but also admits it’s amazing what he can do’.
So does Trent.
“The first time I was shocked when I first arrived here as a rookie, as I saw it from day one, whether it was with the termination of the exercise, the termination of games,” Trent added. “But at this point it’s what he’s doing. No one is surprised in a sense. He’s making big shots. He’s done it over and over again, so at this point I knew it was going in when he shot it.”
Chicago trailed by as many as 19 points the night before and teamed back to make it a close game in the second half. Markkanen finished with a team high of 31 points with six rebounds, and LaVine contributed 26 points with 7 rebounds and 4 assists.
Portland played without Jusuf Nurkic (fracture of the right wrist), CJ McCollum (midfoot sprain), Derrick Jones Jr. (left ankle sprain) and Zach Collins (left ankle stress fracture).
According to data from the Elias Sports Bureau, this is the first time a bouncy ball and an award-winning buzzer have been in the same possession in the last ten seconds since April 30, 2006. On that date, the Los Angeles Lakers had a jump against the Suns, and Kobe Bryant hits the award-winning buzzer.
After nailing the shot Saturday, Lillard attributed to his family members that they had planted the roots in him to push through adversity in critical moments.
“It started in my own family. It’s the crazy thing, and I think that’s why I always refer to my upbringing and the kind of family I come from, just because I have the challenge and how competitive it is in my own family,” he said. said Lillard. . “It could be something like a bee of the game. It could be anything. We compete to the death and it does not matter. You are kept to a certain standard in my family, where it’s just like being for you to be built the low moments, you are going to be built to handle the high moments right.
“Your skin is going to be tough,” he added. “You will be willing to stand up, and you will be willing to deal with failure. But you learn to keep going, no matter what the outcome.”