Blazers’ mind-set
Of course, Lillard was right to wax optimistic... As he argued, “We’re not going into the playoffs saying, ‘Hey, we made it. Let’s bow out gracefully and be happy with what we did. We’re going in there to take a swing. We’re coming in there to try and sho
Nope, Damian Lillard was not speaking out of his backside when he made his prediction that the Blazers would win their first- round playoff series versus the Warriors in six matches. To be fair, he was essentially pushed into a corner, with CSN Northwest throwing him a loaded question. “Blazers in six or seven?” Given the choices, he couldn’t have answered any other way. And so the story heading into Game One on the road against the holders of the best regularseason record in the National Basketball Association was how confident — even unreasonably cocky — he looked.
Of course, Lillard was right to wax optimistic. So what if the Blazers were schooled by the Warriors in the Western Conference Semifinals last year, and that they boast of a relatively inferior roster this time around? And so what if center Jusuf Nurkic remains out due to a leg fracture? As he argued, “We’re not going into the playoffs saying, ‘ Hey, we made it. Let’s bow out gracefully and be happy with what we did. We’re going in there to take a swing. We’re coming in there to try and shock the world.” Creditably, Lillard managed to hit the ground running yesterday. For three quarters, he engineered a scoring binge that kept pace with the Warriors, making the latter uneasy with an outstanding display of shotmaking. Unfortunately, the set-to couldn’t be decided in 36 minutes. In the final canto, the league’s number-one offense and second-ranked defense went to work, and the Blazers were exposed as largely overmatched.
Bottom line, the Blazers lack the talent base to take the measure of the Warriors. Yesterday, for instance, Lillard and backcourt partner C. J. McCollum played just about as well as they could; they combined for 75 points on 28- of- 54 shooting from the field and seven- of-15 shooting from three- point territory. And still they wound up staring at a double- digit deficit at the buzzer, the result of lopsided production that had the rest of the black and red combining for just 34 on an atrocious 12- of- 39 clip.
So, yes, unless and until the Warriors are suddenly beset by an illness that sidelines their First Five, the Blazers will fall by the wayside, perhaps even without claiming a single victory. Nonetheless, Lillard & Company will keep plodding on; they’re used to being written off, and they aim to prove doubters wrong
once more.