DAME AND THE BLAZERS
Oakland native Damian Lillard and Portland gave Golden State some fits in last season’s playoffs. See how the Trail Blazers match up this season.
Damian Lillard hated the idea, right from the start.
“I couldn’t bring myself to do it,” he said on Sirius XM radio upon learning that Kevin Durant had left Oklahoma City for the Warriors. “That’s just not who I am. I’m too much of a competitor, I have too much pride for that.”
Then again, he added, “It also makes it more fun. You get to take a monster down, and that’s always fun.”
Lillard has spoken this week of how his Portland Trail Blazers can “shock the world” with a first-round upset of Golden State. It’s hardly a likely outcome, but it will be fascinating to watch him try. Whether injured center Jusuf Nurkic gets significant playing time or not, the Blazers revolve around Lillard’s talent, durability and sheer resolve.
Nattily attired in a light-blue suit on the bench, Nurkic had a firsthand look at Lillard’s magnificence Saturday in a must-win game against Utah. At one point Nurkic looked at an imaginary watch and smiled. It’s a gesture often adopted by his teammates, signifying “Dame Time.” And what a show: Lillard scored 59 points, setting a Portland franchise record, without committing a single turnover.
“It was a game we absolutely had to have,” Lillard told reporters. “I knew coming in I was going to attack them. I decided I was going to impose my will on them and see how it goes.”
Imposing one’s will on the Warriors is quite a different story.
Durant is famous for such things, and he’s surrounded by Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala and a lofty culture of winning. That’s why the outcome of this series seems preordained, even if the gritty Blazers pull out a win or two at home.
Until we know exactly how Nurkic fits in — and let’s hope he plays, with longtime Portland observers comparing his passing skills to those of Bill Walton and Arvydas Sabonis — the focus has to land on the backcourts. On certain nights, Lillard and C.J. McCollum look like the best pair in the business — Splash Brothers included.
It’s all about friendship and trust, qualities that have often eluded the Clippers and Washington Wizards, among other postseason contenders.
“Damian doesn’t put himself above the team or other players,” McCollum said in an interview during last year’s playoffs. “He’s not taking Uber to the games instead of arriving with the team. He treats the rookies like he treats vets. He never demoralizes people and he doesn’t talk down to them. It’s rare you see a player of his caliber so humble, so laid back.”
(Humility? After his 59-point game, Lillard took the game ball and gave it to Utah’s Joe Johnson, who had surpassed 20,000 points in his career that night.)
The challenge of Lillard, said Utah head coach Quin Snyder, is that “you can’t relax, because he has unlimited range. Those three-pointers he walks into, he has rhythm. They seem like tough shots because they’re so deep, but they’re not. On the pick-and-roll, he’s measuring you constantly. He’s terrific at reading coverages, always looking for the advantage. And they do a great job of changing angles so he can get separation when he’s on the dribble.”
Throughout the Oracle stands, there will be people familiar with Lillard’s Oakland roots: the years at St. Joseph Notre Dame-Alameda and Oakland High, the perseverance that carried him through a somewhat obscure career at Weber State and into the NBA. “Oakland breeds toughness,” Lillard likes to say, “and guys who don’t back down.”
Lillard hasn’t forgotten the Blazers’ crushing, 45-point loss to the Warriors on a Saturday night in mid-December. “We have to play with some damn heart,” he said that night. “This s— is ridiculous.”
And then the topper: “I’m a soldier. I feel like if I die, I can come back to life and win.”
That’s Dame Time. A zone to itself, dismissed by no one.