As the playoffs approach, each game mounts more and more pressure on Damian Lillard and the Blazers. Dame explains how he handles the intensity.
It’s 2004 and 14-year-old Damian Lillard’s AAU basketball team, the Oakland Rebels, trail by 20 points after the first half.
Lillard decides to guard the opposing team’s best player. He begins to get stops on defense and score profusely.
They come back.
At the end of game, the then Oakland Rebels star Lillard hits the game-winning shot to propel his team to victory.
That was the moment Damian Lillard said he began to like pressure in basketball games, as stated during a Dwight Jaynes’ NBC Sports Northwest story.
"“I love the feeling of ‘we have to score this time; we have to get a stop; we have gotta come up big,’ Lillard said in a press conference earlier this week. “For the rest of our AAU tournaments after that, every time it came to the end of the game, I just found myself enjoying the thrill of ‘we could lose right here or we could win.’"
The five-time NBA All-Star said that he loves “the ride” even if the Blazers lose.
Portland’s last two games have been intense rides. The Portland Trail Blazers have been both the defeaters and the defeated.
In their matchup against the Los Angeles Clippers on Aug. 8, the Blazers lost after leading for most of the game. Lillard missed consecutive, potential game-winning free throws.
The next day against the Philadelphia 76ers, the Blazers won after giving up a 17 point lead and being down with five minutes left in the game.
Lillard said that after the Clippers loss, he would not let the Sixers game “slip away”. When they lost control of the game again like the previous night, he said he decided they were going to figure out a way to win.
"“When the pressure’s on, he approaches the game with a determination that’s unparalleled,” Blazers head coach Terry Stotts said to NBA media earlier this week. “I don’t know how much outside influences matter. They might.”"
After the tough Clippers loss, many of Lillard’s doubters surfaced including Clippers players Paul George and Patrick Beverly—two players Lillard eliminated from the playoffs— and FS1 sports analyst Skip Bayless.
Bayless’ primary argument against Lillard has been his mental toughness. Bayless has often said that Lillard and CJ McCollum “came up small” against the Golden State Warriors in last year’s Western Conference Finals loss and said he does not think Lillard is “that guy.”
Lillard, however, said he enjoys the mental aspect of high-intensity games.
"“You get to the point when only a few people are going to push through and sustain that focus,” Lillard said. “And I like to take advantage of that because I know I’m going to be there the whole time—physically and mentally.”"