Dame is back, but he's just getting started
Dame's epic night from 3 caps off a good homestand
Whether you were at the Rose Garden, watching at home, or following along with the dialogue on Twitter, Monday was as good as it gets for a mid-December game from a Portland perspective.
Dame got everyone going with an electric performance, he played fewer than 30 minutes and Shaedon Sharpe enjoyed copious amounts of 4th quarter run in a game they never trailed. While neutral observers, including Kevin Durant, wanted Dame to chase Klay Thompson’s NBA record of 14 3-pointers, the Blazers are not ones to be thirsty.
Although Portland prides itself on having multiple guys who can score 40 points, it’s worth putting into perspective how crucial it is that Lillard is playing at a level as high or better than we’ve ever seen from him. Over the last four games, he’s averaging over 33.7 points per game with shooting splits of 51/51/100. His explosiveness is just as good as it has ever been because he’s healthier than he has been in four years. And after 10 years in the league, as he told reporters after the game, he has “the answers to the test.”
But as someone who got answers before a test once or twice, I can tell you that you don’t get there without some help from your friends. Or in Dame’s case, his teammates. More than ever before, Lillard is starting to find ways to affect the game outside of the pick-and-roll. He’s coming back faster to Nurk for a dribble-handoff than he used to, knowing he can get the ball right back when he’s on. We are seeing him utilize dribble hand-offs after a pick-and-roll doesn’t pan out or calling plays where Simons or Grant bring the ball up, allowing him to work his way into the action from the baseline. It’s a testament to Dame’s basketball IQ, Billups’ philosophy, and the connectivity between each player that was in Joe Cronin’s mind when he built the roster.
“I think that’s the way that we will be more successful, so we can all be ourselves. Ant has to play with the ball in his hands, Jerami has to play with the ball in his hands and he’s going to get his isos and because of the way that they played this season, teams have to give them respect. Both of them make the right play and I think that’s the beauty of it for me,” Lillard said after the game when asked about getting more looks away from the ball. “It’s not a situation where I go off the ball and allow them to do them and I’m not going to lose myself in the game. Because they both make the right play, opportunities will be there. And that’s pretty much what happened tonight. We got stops, we pushed it at them, and guys were attacking and being downhill. I benefit from that, making the right play. Most of them were catch-and-shoot, obviously, some was off the bounce too but I had a lot of catch-and-shoot opportunities just because J-Hart getting downhill, and Ant getting in the paint. Jerami, they’re running two guys at him in the post. Nurk is setting quick screens, and stuff like that. It was just in the flow. Once it started to go in, the ball just started to find me. And I’m sure that it was in everybody’s mind that I was hot and they made an effort to give me the ball.”
It wasn’t just everybody on the floor. However many thousands of people at the game started standing up every time Dame had the ball in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. It was like watching KD at Rucker Park on YouTube, except in an NBA game.
Billups, who so often does, explained why Lillard off-the-ball works with his straight-up “1+1 = 2” approach.
“I like to get him off the ball some because it’s tough to double when he’s off the ball. It’s easier to double him when he’s on the ball,” Billups said. “So you would like to do that, but the game was just flowing and there wasn’t a lot of time to call timeouts and call a set play. We had some but I just love the connection of our guys. They know when Ant is on a heater when Dame is on a heater and just find ways to get it to him. Set screens for him, dribble handoffs to him. That’s a connected group, you want to always be like that.”
The Blazers’ connectivity as a group has helped them outperform expectations. Lillard fosters it, but the Blazers have proven their ability to connect with each other even when he’s not on the floor. It’s also a characteristic that can allow Dame, as he said, to be the best team they can be. And we’re only just starting to see how much Dame is able to benefit from the Blazers having multiple players who can cause problems for opposing defenses.
Notes
Check out my recap for the Associated Press!
Dame didn’t play but we got 12 minutes of uncut Shaedon Sharpe. It was cool as hell. I don’t know which plays I liked more, the putback dunk or the up and under lay-up on Rudy Gobert that made me think I was watching Michael Jordan’s Playground on VHS for the 5000th time.
The Wolves DID NOT want to be there on Tuesday night and credit to the Blazers for sweeping them off the stage. There are nights like the San Antonio game back in November when you let a team hang around that shouldn’t, but I thought the Blazers showed a little growth tonight by leaving no doubt. A lot of that was Dame’s amazing scoring night, but they also capitalized on a Minnesota team missing a beat. After the game Wolves Chris Finch wondered to the media whether his team was really ready to play.
Now the Blazers start a 6-game road trip that won’t get them back home until Christmas Eve. They’ve gone 8-6 on the road this season and will need to pick up a couple more if they want to stay in the top six of the Western Conference playoff picture.
Dame is most likely going to break the Blazers franchise scoring record on the upcoming road trip. He addressed what it could mean after the game, though he does wish he could do it in front of the home crowd. “I’ve thought about it for years but I’ve never thought about when it actually happens, how am I going to feel. I think everybody here knows and we’ve documented that I want to be the best. I want to be the guy that when people say who was the best to come through here, I want people to look and ‘say it was Dame.’ Obviously, scoring isn’t everything but when you get up in these types of numbers that’s a major thing. And if you know that it’s Clyde Drexler. Anybody who knows the history of the NBA is going to respect and honor that. Being a part of one organization for this long and being able to sustain this level of success and catch a record like that means a lot. To be in that position, it’s a major step in the further direction of being what I want to be as far as being a Trail Blazer. It’s a major accomplishment,” Dame said. “I really wish it was at home. I wish it was at home. It’s something that our fans deserve to be a part of, from that first game to that moment. If I had been able to stay healthy we would have been on a perfect track but it is what it is.”