Portland Trail Blazers: Four forgotten moments that led up to Damian Lillard’s legendary shot

1. Lillard actually showed us almost the same shot 24 minutes earlier

Because Damian Lillard put up buckets in beaucoup — 50 of them to be exact, including a Playoff-high 10 3-pointers — it’s difficult to give every shot it’s fair admiration. But on the first possession of the third quarter, Lillard actually showed Paul George his “bad shot,” a warning shot if you will.

See the shot here at 2:12.

Because of the size mismatch, the Oklahoma City Thunder were more than comfortable with switching 6-foot-7 Defensive Player of the Year candidate Paul George onto Lillard on hand-offs and pick-and-rolls. It turns out, Portland’s star was just a little bit more comfortable.

This one tracked in as a 34-foot fadeaway 3-pointer, but it holds some special significance, too. To this point, the Blazers had found a way to withstand the Thunder shooting 59.5 percent, foul trouble and injuries from some of Portland’s featured stars, and still had a four point lead. It sent a message that Lillard’s hot start wasn’t a mirage.

After this shot, Lillard had 37 points on 13-of-19 from the field and 7-of-10 from deep. As mentioned, by the end of this series, Lillard was a perfect 5-of-5 on shots from 30-feet and beyond, a testament to that work he had put in.

In his postgame presser, Lillard discussed the deep shots more extensively:

"“My trainer, Phil Beckner, we was working out the other night in OKC, and he was like, ‘Just take a few, take a few deep ones. You know off the dribble. Let’s shoot a few deep ones’ and he was like ‘I’m telling you, you gone hit one of these.’”"

Well, how about two?