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Best of the Season, Part VIII: CJ McCollum drops 50 as Trail Blazers win fourth straight

By Matt George Moore

PORTLAND, OR - JANUARY 31: CJ McCollum #3 of the Portland Trail Blazers celebrates with the bench during the game against the Chicago Bulls on January 31, 2018 at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Cameron Browne/NBAE via Getty Images)
PORTLAND, OR - JANUARY 31: CJ McCollum #3 of the Portland Trail Blazers celebrates with the bench during the game against the Chicago Bulls on January 31, 2018 at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Cameron Browne/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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It was the final day of January, and the Portland Trail Blazers were playing their best basketball of the season. And then CJ McCollum went and did something historic.

Four times during the early stages of the 2017-2018 season, the Portland Trail Blazers flirted with winning four games in a row. Now, that may not seem like much of an aspiration. But when a team spends the bulk of the first half of a season treading water — barely above the .500 mark — streaks of any length are noteworthy.

Enter the Chicago Bulls (18-32 and in the midst of what would be a seven-game losing streak) to offer themselves up as sacrificial lambs for the Blazers’ slaughter.

Seriously though, not even the Bulls could have foreseen the kind of game that CJ McCollum had in store for them — and for those of us in Rip City and around the NBA world who were fortunate enough to have witnessed it.

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50 points.

In 29 minutes and 16 seconds.

It was a thing of beauty. And one of the Blazers’ best games of the year — not to mention one of the best games by any Blazers player ever.

Bulls-Blazers

As we’ve attempted to document in our “Best of the Season” series, the quote-unquote “best” games in a season are not always those one might imagine. We wanted to highlight games that may have flown under the radar — not necessarily big wins against tough opponents but rather games in which something more subtle occurred.

But this particular game is not like that. This game was not subtle; it was so obviously one of the best games of the year that we are likely to run out of superlatives in describing it.

But we’ll try.

Team

Basketball is a team game, and we would be remiss if we failed to mention the contributions of some of the other Blazers in their Jan. 31 matchup with the Bulls. So here is a list of some players and their contributions, even though nobody other than McCollum scored more than 13 points. (Not that any of them needed to.)

Damian Lillard: 13 points, seven assists

Jusuf Nurkic: 12 points, nine rebounds

Pat Connaughton: 10 points off the bench

Now, back to CJ.

CJ

McCollum scored 28 points in the first quarter against the Bulls (a Portland franchise record).

That’s how his night started.

And amazingly, he had nowhere to go but up.

McCollum was 18/25 from the field — a ridiculous 72 percent — during the game. And he was 6/9 from the three-point line.

Dude scored from everywhere.

History

And when all was said and done — and there was much said and a whole lot done — McCollum had accomplished something that only one other NBA player had ever achieved: 50 points in less than 30 minutes of court time.

(Amazingly, Lillard would become the third player in history to accomplish this feat just nine days later. But, as usual, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.)

McCollum’s out-of-his-mind barrage of offense pushed the Blazers to a 43-19 lead over the Bulls after just one quarter. And by the start of the fourth quarter, McCollum was on the bench watching the Blazers’ reserves eat up the rest of the minutes.

Final score: Blazers 124, Bulls 108.

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And Portland (29-22) had its first four-game winning streak of the season. (They’d also won seven of their last eight.)

As reported on NBA.com:

"McCollum is now a member of the Blazers’ 50-point club, joining Clyde Drexler, Lillard, Andre Miller, Geoff Petrie, Damon Stoudamire and Brandon Roy."

Pretty good company, yeah?