Damian Lillard: “All I Need to See is One Shot Going in”

Portland Trail Blazers made a huge step towards the Western Conference semifinals, after defeating Oklahoma City Thunder last night with 111-98. This win brought them only one step away from the next round, and they will have an opportunity to make that step in two days time at their Moda Center.

They had to wait until the third quarter once again to see Damian Lillard in his usual mode, and to pull away from the hosts.

Dame was pretty bad in the first half, shooting 2 of 8 from the field, and scoring seven points. When the second half began, Lillard stepped up and dropped 15 on OKC’s defense, and in no time, his team was up by double-digit difference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQmahm70Qkw

He opened the game with six straight misses from the field, and his first basket came 1:14 before the end of the second quarter. Portland was on the rampage then, and Lillard was getting the pace.

Trail Blazers were down 46-39, before making an 11-0 run which put them ahead during the break. Now, Lillard scored a three and a two during that stretch, and it seemed that the halftime is going to interrupt his warm up. But it didn’t happen that way.

“All I need to do is see it going in one time. Once it goes in one time, that can turn into three, four or five, and that is kinda what happened in the third quarter,” Lillard explained at the press conference.

Lillard dropped two consecutive threes, and afterward dunked to silence the crowd at Chesapeake Energy Arena, making an 8-0 run of his own to lift the Trail Blazers to a 68-54 lead at the middle of the third. Unlike Game 3, he was quiet while tearing apart OKC.

One of the reporters wanted to know more about trash talking situations from Game 3, and asked Portland’s All-Star whether had been some of the same in last night’s match. Dame said that he wasn’t interested in any type of battles but the ones on the court.

“We’re going to focus on the stuff that we need to focus on that’s going to give us a chance to win the game. I was proud of how our team stuck to that.”

By the way, he totally outplayed Russell Westbrook who once again had an awful shooting night, hitting just five of his 21 shots, finishing the game with 14 points.

.@Dame_Lillard discusses what the Trail Blazers focused on heading into the #NBAPlayoffs despite the doubters and injuries. 👀 pic.twitter.com/SgyLgDcCgZ

— NBA TV (@NBATV) April 22, 2019

Coach Terry Stotts commented on Lillard’s burst in the third quarter as something usual. The 62-year old coach knew that after a bad period in Dame’s game it was just a matter of time before he explodes.

“We’ve kind of come to expect it,” Stotts said. “He manages the game. He senses the moment when we need him to do different things.”

Portland’s backcourt duo once again played at a high level, CJ McCollum had 27 points shooting 5 of 9 for three, Lillard was there with 24 points and 8 dimes, and 4 downtown hits.

The second part of Blazer’s dynamic duo averages 26.3 points in the series, along with 6.3 boards and 4.5 assists, with 46.3% from the field, and amazing 51.6% for three. Numbers like these are coming from his enormous desire to erase last season’s playoff trauma, when Portland suffered a swift sweeping in the first round against the Pelicans.

“We got swept last year, it was really embarrassing,” said McCollum. “Everyone talked about it. It was on TV every day. I went on TV and they talked about us getting swept. They talked about me getting traded.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxsyLGvhtIM

The two-above mentioned guys were in the focus of the media all the time, but Al Farouq Aminu and Mo Harkless really deserved credits for their contribution last night. They usually make a huge impact on the defensive side of the ball, but last night they scored 34 points combined and had 19 boards.

The overall shooting percentage of the home team was 37.5%, and that is mostly because of these two who made every shot of the Thunder players pretty tough. For example, Paul George was 8 of 21, Terrance Ferguson 1 of 7 etc.

Portland has a nice chance to close the series on Tuesday and the game starts at 8:30 p.m. local time.