OKLAHOMA CITY: With 5 minutes and 28 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Damian Lillard hit two hard dribbles with his left hand, putting his man on his hip and hiring assistant defender Al Horford.
It was a one-point game, the leader of the Oklahoma City Thunder, and, as Lillard does, he pressed the eject button to get up and shoot at Horford’s face, the kind of shot that based on the mythology “Dame Time”.
The problem was that, until then, he was 1 of 9 from the 3-point distance. It wasn’t a typical Lillard game, with rain of logo shots and dazzling edge finishes. It was low, it was on the left, it was on the right. And this one about Horford: this one was very short i to the left.
Lillard has helped the battered Blazers last month behind those moments, carrying the burden of clutch time on their shoulders as he tries to bring in young talents like Anfernee Simons, Gary Trent Jr. and Nassir Little. But the big points, the cruel-time shots, belong to Lillard.
But with cold air in Oklahoma cool to the point that the state had an energy emergency, with basically all the arena lights off but those that illuminated the ground, Lillard was ice cold. And not in the right way.
The Thunder, as they have often done this season, got rid of their young players, hanging on to the game long enough for energy and athletics to wear down a rival. Hamidou Diallo sprang up all over the ground; Lu Dort was snowing to the edge. A 20-point lead from Blazer turned into a five-point deficit with four minutes to go. I was getting to a point now or never from Dame Time.
“There’s concern,” Lillard admitted. He said he looked at the scoreboard when the Blazers’ lead was reduced to 93-84, hoping his team could make two quick 3s, calm the fall of the Thunder and then take control to get an easy landing. .
“But I was like,‘ Man, it would be a tough loss for us. We played so well. “But once I got back on the court, it was like …” he said, pausing for a moment.
“I never think there’s any game I can’t control,” he said. “When I’m out there, I feel the difficulty that the defense is trying to stop me. When I see the alert and the activity that they’re trying to stop me, it just lets me know they’re worried. They’re worried no matter how good or bad I’m throwing the ball in. And for me, it’s even more mental for me that even though they know I’m not hot, they’re still worried and I want to show them why I should be worried.And why they should still be in the edge “.
0:52
Enes Kanter comments on the incredible work of Damian Lillard, saying that he had never seen anything like it.
His first end of the third game reached the 4:11 mark, with Dort flying beside him with a fake bomb. Lillard took a shower and drained it quietly. The Thunder ’lead was reduced to two and ended with a 23-4 run with which OKC had opened the fourth quarter. With the Thunder now on high alert, he set Trent for corner 3 of the next trip and the Blazers won again.
The next possession, Lillard worked to keep him away from Dort and force a change. He leaned back towards a quick throw on Isaiah Roby and hit the bottom of the net. A few possessions later, Lillard had Dort isolated. A stubborn defender who had worked tirelessly to chase Lillard, Dort was left with every stab, every debate, every fake. With the shot clock lowered, Lillard got on his back and took a big step back to crawl to a 3 with a little thinner and a little more bow due to stellar defense. It was worth it: it was Dame Time. Two trips later, Lillard hit one more for the official dagger to give the Blazers a fifth straight win, 115-104 over OKC.
Lillard started the game 1 of 10 from a distance of 3 points. He finished 4 of 4. Only a standard 31-point game with seven rebounds and 10 assists and one win.
“It’s like a cheat code: I’ve never seen anything like it,” Enes Kanter said. “And I’ve played with some great players. But I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s wild.”
Dame Time’s mindset is pretty much chronic, with Lillard answering her questions since she dropped her first famous clutch shot, in 2014 to eliminate the Houston Rockets. But he revealed that on Tuesday part of unlocking the mindset to embrace great moments is his own mental mind game with himself.
“I don’t know why,” he said, “I just do it.”
2:24
Stephen A. Smith apologizes for overlooking Damian Lillard’s outstanding performances this season.
The attention of the defenders, the fear he hears in the voices of the assistant coaches begging the players to keep up, can serve as an injection of confidence for Lillard, even when the shot doesn’t fall.
“It’s encouraging right now,” Lillard said. “Sometimes I get short. Sometimes they do it well enough or the shots don’t come in, but right now I’m telling myself that when they get off the court they might come back and say, ‘That’s why we wanted you to do it so we don’t past. I want to do it with the opposing team. “
Lillard said he doesn’t remember exactly when he started playing those mental games with himself (maybe he guessed his second season) and that he really had no explanation for how he mentally takes himself to this place to activate it.
“It’s internal,” he said. “You just demand it. You just demand something more from yourself. There’s nothing to come [Blazers head] coach [Terry] Stotts, nothing comes of it [NBA development coach] Phil Beckner, none of that. Just inside, I’m like, “I have to find a way.” This is an opportunity to move up and down. “
At the end of the third quarter, Lillard collided with Dort and it took a long time to try to eliminate him. The Blazers made a foul so they could check him on the bench, and even after getting the back completely clear, Lillard watched as he rubbed and flexed his knee intermittently. It was a brief moment of terror for the Blazers, who have already faced a wave of attrition. This wear and tear has given some of their young players opportunities to develop, which may benefit the team in the long run, but, as demonstrated last season, without Lillard, there is no Dame Time, which means that there are no Blazers.
That’s why he accepts and understands the responsibility he has, especially without siding with CJ McCollum. And even on a night when it didn’t happen, Lillard’s inner voice kept talking to him, telling him there was a chance for a moment.
“I’ve told myself and I’ve come a few times. But it’s real,” he said. “I always talk to myself like that. You have to find a way. You have to start. You’ve been throwing the whole game wrong, but this is a fresh start. I’m always talking to myself like that.”
Cold as ice. In the right way.