Near the end of the first half of the Portland Trailblazers’ first round playoff Game 1 last year against the New Orleans Pelicans, I noticed on the scoreboard that Damian Lilliard and CJ McCollum had combined for a total of 3 points. It looked like a misprint, but in fact it turned out to be entirely predictive of the outcome, a four-game sweep with the dominant image of the series being of Jrue Holiday in Dame’s face. It put into question the whole future of the Blazer franchise, and the thought of either Dame or CJ on the trading block suddenly seemed possible.
Instead, the Blazers doubled down on their backcourt and were rewarded with 53 wins in the regular season and a first-round playoff series victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder. The 37-foot dagger that Lillard hit over Paul George to end the series, followed by his good-bye wave to the Thunder bench, took the roof off of the Moda Center and was the talk of the NBA the next day. It was a crowning touch to a series that had become entertainingly personal between Lillard and Russell Westbrook, he of the permanent chip on his shoulder:
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2019/4/22/18510575/damian-lillard-russell-westbrook-beef-tracker
George’s postgame comment that Lillard’s shot was a bad one was also entertaining. He would have been right for 99 percent of NBA players, but he seemed to have forgotten that Lillard is one of the rare shooters in the NBA who hits regularly from beyond 30 feet, including 9 of 15 in the series. Dame’s range is the elite of the elite, and other than Stephen Curry, it’s hard to name anyone else in that company. George gave Lillard too much space on that last play, and he’ll have a long off-season to contemplate his error.
Looking ahead, it may be a bit much to predict a Finals appearance for the Blazers, as Charles Barkley has done, but their path is more favorable than in the last several seasons. Their second-round opponent, the Denver Nuggets, shouldn’t be underestimated, but no one will mistake them for the Golden State Warriors juggernaut that has owned the NBA for the last four seasons–with the exception of one Finals hiccup. With the San Antonio Spurs giving them all they could handle in their seven-game first round series, the Nuggets look like a team that can be had, and there’s no guarantee that the Blazers would run into the Dubs even in the conference finals, with both Curry and Klay Thompson nursing rolled ankles heading into their series with the Houston Rockets.
The biggest concern for the Blazers, however, is center Enes Kanter’s separated shoulder. Kanter, picked off the NBA junk pile when Nurkic broke his leg late in the season, did an admirable job of replacing Nurkic’s scoring and rebounding and was significantly responsible for the Blazers’ continued success down the stretch. A missing or diminished Kanter could leave a big hole in the paint to be exploited by the Nuggets’ star center Nikola Jokic. That’s not necessarily a death sentence for the Blazers, but it suggests that Lillard will have to carry an even greater workload if they hope to advance to the conference finals.
That might be just fine with Dame. He’s no stranger to that kind of responsibility and has shown that he thrives on it. As he said of his recent series-winner, “That’s definitely the biggest shot of my life–so far.”
