We all knew Damian Lillard was good. This isn’t some new revelation with a surprising outcome, but in the NBA bubble he’s transformed into an emotionless killer who doesn’t even pretend to care about basketball conventions.
There is nothing about this shot that makes a modicum of sense. Basic logic tells us you don’t attempt a three this deep. Especially when down by seven. Especially with over 10 minutes left in the quarter. Even more especially when you have 18 seconds left on the shot clock. Nothing about this is a sound, sensible basketball play — but please don’t tell Dame I said that, because he’s so dialed in right now I’m afraid that any whisper of criticism and he’d leap at my face like a startled velociraptor.
Honestly, it’s turned every Blazers game into can’t-miss programming, just because since arriving in Orlando there’s just something different about Dame — especially over the last three games. I haven’t seen a Lillard turn into a killer this quickly since Scream.
In the last five days Lillard is averaging 51.3 pts, shooting an astounding 0.560 from the field. He’s knocking down threes with ease, making teams look like JV squads, and this isn’t some case of him playing against butt opponents either. Lillard did this against the Sixers, Mavericks, and Nets — all playoff-caliber teams. Oh, he also dished out 9.0 assists per game over this stretch too, because Lillard will kill you, but he also enjoys sharing, like Hannibal Lector inviting you over for a nice “steak” dinner.
Perhaps most importantly Damian Lillard taught us a valuable lesson about why we’ve missed sports so much: The unexpected. Like I said, we all knew he was a great player, but we’d never seen this out of him before. In order to make the NBA Playoffs compelling we needed a star to emerge and surprise us, like a guest star on a sitcom used to boost ratings. Lillard is now that player, and missing a Blazers game is your own mistake — because he’s just that damn good.