Like all great warriors, he studies and quotes Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. And he always seems to be the calmest and most measured man on the court or in the room.
Damian Lillard, you see, is built for these pressure-packed playoff moments, both those he’s already experienced and those to come.
His legend grows with each and every scintillating moment he provides for the Portland Trail Blazers during this postseason run (SEE: The 37-footer that ended the Oklahoma City Thunder season).
So to say Lillard is eager to keep it going against the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference semifinals would be an understatement of epic proportions.
Lillard was born for this, relishes the white-hot spotlight the playoffs provides and is just getting started in his attempt to rewrite this current Blazers crew’s playoff legacy.
That might explain his mild surprise at the reaction of folks in the Moda Center and bars around the city after his step-back dagger to finish off the Thunder. The wild celebration caught him off guard, mostly because he expected to come through in the clutch even if no one else did.
“What if we win the second round? What if we go to the Western Conference Finals?,” Lillard said of his focus after digesting the reaction. “How are they going to react then?’ That was my mentality.”
Being swept out of the playoffs in your two previous postseason appearances has a way of hardening the heart of a true competitor like Lillard, whose entire NBA career to this point has been the personification of outperforming expectations.
A trying season that began with the Blazers dealing with the death of owner Paul Allen culminated with the loss of starting center Jusuf Nurkic being lost for the postseason with a compound fracture of his left leg.
Another early exit for the Blazers, however painful, would have been understood given the circumstances.
Lillard wasn’t having it. Not at this stage of his career. Not with the clock ticking on his chance to compete at the highest level in his prime. And certainly not with a path to the conference finals — the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets are in the conference semifinal on the other side of the bracket — in plain sight.
A Nuggets team believing in its own destiny stands in the way, of course.
But for Lillard, as he stated repeatedly during the Thunder series, it’s not about the other team.
It’s about the Blazers, the guys in red and black, and the Blazers only.
If they do what they’re supposed to do, the rest will fall into place accordingly. He’s preached it non-stop to his guys from the start, leading in words, deeds and spirit.
And they are clearly ready to follow him wherever he takes them.
“I don’t think anybody in here is satisfied,” said Blazers swingman Moe Harkless. “We’re happy that we were able to take care of business in the first round, but we’re not satisfied. We know that we’ve got more work to do. We’re capable of doing more things this postseason.”
Three things to watch
1. Can Damian Lillard keep it going? The cold-blooded assassin that Lillard can be was on full display in a five-game rout of Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder. Dame shot a mind-boggling 48.1 percent on shots from beyond the 3-point line, including a perfect 5-for-5 from 30 feet and beyond. Even if the Nuggets could find someone on the roster eager for the challenge, there’s still the matter of doing the job. And no one still operating in this postseason (outside of Golden State’s Kevin Durant) is doing their job better than Lillard. He’s playing not so much with a chip on his shoulder after recent playoff disappointments, but with the unwavering focus of a man you’d think had been through this countless times before. And he’s most dangerous because he knows how to compartmentalize his emotions and stay locked in on the most immediate objective.
2. How do the Trail Blazers deal with Nikola Jokic? To borrow a phrase from the Golden State Warriors, strength in numbers. That’s the only way the Blazers can combat what Jokic, potentially the best-passing big man we’ve seen in generations, brings as a triple-double threat every night. Plus, without Jusuf Nurkic and with Enes Kanter dealing with sore shoulder, Meyers Leonard and Zach Collins will have to provide quality minutes against Jokic anyway. That rotation dealt with the brute force of Steven Adams in the first round but now they’ll be faced with the do-it-all wizardry of perhaps the most skilled jumbo athlete in the league. They’ll need numbers to get it done.
3. Is Denver’s bench mob is legit? Absolutely. Nuggets coach Mike Malone deploys Malik Beasley, Mason Plumlee and Monte Morris the way Clippers coach Doc Rivers unleashed Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell on the rest of the league all season. The tempo change is real when the Nuggets’ bench mob provides that energy boost. Morris might very well be the best true point guard on the roster and Beasley will be critical in matching up as a defender on Lillard or McCollum when he gets assigned to either one of the Blazers stars. Plumlee’s work in relief of Jokic all season has not been celebrated as it should have been. And Malone might play them together more in this series to take advantage of his bigger lineup against a Blazers team that appears to be soft(er) in the middle without Nurkic available.
The pick
The Nuggets had to grind all the way to a Game 7 against the Spurs and then survive a fourth-quarter meltdown (Jamal Murray rescued them in the final minutes with two huge shots) to reach this point, so it’s easy to assume that they’ll continue to struggle through their first postseason run as a group. Be careful with those easy assumptions this time of year. There’s a reason these two teams were slotted in the second and third spots in the Western Conference playoff chase. This is as fair a fight on this side of the bracket as Warriors-Rockets is on the other side. As good as Jokic has been in this postseason, and he’s been terrific, the Nuggets will need everything he can muster and more to fight off the wrath of Lillard and McCollum now that they’ve had a little rest after their own postseason breakthrough. That best home record in the league carries Denver into the conference finals for the first time since Carmelo Anthony was rocking the Pepsi Center this late in a season. Nuggets in 7.
