The Trail Blazers guard capped a playoff career-high 50-point effort with a 37-foot buzzer-beating game-winner to eliminate Oklahoma City.
Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard capped a playoff career-high 50-point effort with a 37-foot buzzer-beating game-winner to eliminate the Oklahoma City Thunder in five games. By Ben Golliver Ben Golliver NBA reporter Email Bio Follow April 24 at 3:37 AM Damian Lillard hit a deep three-pointer at the buzzer to win a first-round playoff series. And then he did it again five years later — only deeper. Much deeper.
The series-clinching buzzer-beater led to pandemonium in the building, as Lillard was mobbed by his teammates, and it brought back memories of his game-winner to eliminate the Houston Rockets in the first round of the 2014 playoffs. While Portland made a point to maintain its focus in Games 4 and 5 after a testy Game 3 loss in Oklahoma City, Lillard made it clear he had been compiling mental notes. Russell Westbrook had called him “too small” and executed his “rock the baby” celebration after posting up Lillard, while Dennis Schroder had mocked Lillard’s “Dame Time” celebration by pointing to his own wrist late in Game 3.
“Damian’s performance was probably the best performance I’ve seen in person,” said Terry Stotts, who began his NBA coaching career as an assistant coach in 1994 and got his first head job in 2002. George, seemingly stunned by Lillard’s game-winner, insisted that his defense on the play had been sufficient by any normal standard.
To the marksman himself, the shots weren’t identical because the time/score situations weren’t identical. In 2014, Portland was down by two and would have lost if Lillard had missed. In 2019, the score was tied and Portland would have headed to overtime with a miss.
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