7/29/2019 Damian Lillard picks, pushes, puts in improbable layup in Blazers win over Yahoo! Sports (blog)

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Damian Lillard picks, pushes, puts in improbable layup in

Blazers win over Yahoo! Sports (blog)

Through the first 21 minutes of Thursday nights late TNT game, the shorthanded New YorkKnicks playing without their highest-priced player (Amare Stoudemire, out for the next six

weeks following right knee debridement surgery), their leading scorer (Carmelo Anthony, back

in New York having his troublesome right knee drained of fluid) and arguably their most

important player (Tyson Chandler, who sat Thursday after bruising his left knee in a Wednesday

night loss to the Denver Nuggets) hung with the Portland Trail Blazers, using contributions

from surprising sources (20 points, 11 rebounds and five assists from the trio of Kenyon Martin,

Marcus Camby and Kurt Thomas), ball security (13 assists and just three turnovers) and

unsustainably hot shooting (21 of 32, 63.6 percent from the floor) to hold a 10-point lead with

less than three minutes remaining before halftime.

But old-man magic can only last so long, especially as the pace picks up; when the game gets

fast, youth will be served. And when youre talking about Portland and youre talking about

youth, youre talking about Damian Lillard, who not only assisted on three buckets in the closing

minutes as the Blazers made a run, but also pulled off a brilliant defense-into-offense play with

under 20 seconds remaining and the Knicks falling apart:

Lillards good pick-off (not to be confused with the bad pick that started the game) and

howd-he-do-that? reverse layup capped a 13-0 Blazers run that completely tilted the game,

taking the wind out of New Yorks sails and putting the younger, fresher and (amazingly,considering their bench) deeper Blazers in control of matters, sending the Knicks into halftime

reeling and trailing.

New York wasnt able to regain its early-game form after intermission, thanks in large part to

Portland switching up its strategy on pick-and-roll coverage. After watching guards Raymond

Felton (who, as we all expected, wasnt too popular in his return to Portland) and Jason Kidd

carve up the Portland D to feed diving bigs Martin and Camby for layups, Blazers coach Terry

Stotts had his big men aggressively hedge on ball screens, trap to prevent dribble penetration

by Knick ball-handlers and get their hands in the passing lanes, all but choking off Knick entry to

the lane and forcing a slew of contested midrange and long-distance shots. The result? TheKnicks went 5 for 27 in the third quarter, scoring just 14 points in the frame; from there, it was all

over but the shoutin.

And there wassome shoutin, as J.R. Smith got hot to start the fourth, scoring 11 of his

game-high 33 points in a 2 1/2-minute stretch to chop a 16-point Portland lead down to four at

the 7:54 mark. But as weve seen time and again during his rookie season and especially

when he gets a shot at the nationally televised spotlight Lillard showed uncommon poise for a

rookie point guard. The Weber State product made a steal on the Knicks next possession that

led to a LaMarcus Aldridge layup, then drained a 3-pointer that put Portland back up by nine

and teamed up with swingman Nicolas Batum for a pair of triples that extended the lead to 17,knocking the Knicks out cold with 4 1/2 minutes left. After that, it was just a matter of

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7/29/2019 Damian Lillard picks, pushes, puts in improbable layup in Blazers win over Yahoo! Sports (blog)

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accounting; the final balance sheet read Portland 105, New York 90.

Lillard finished with a team-high 26 points on 11 for 18 shooting to go with 10 assists and just

one turnover in 40-plus minutes on the floor, which is the kind of line thats becoming more

common for him hes scored 20 or more points, dished seven or more dimes and made atleast 50 percent of his shots in four of his last six games, and in one of the others, he missed

those marks by one field-goal attempt. Hes averaging 24.6 points and seven assists per game

in March on 54.2 percent shooting from the field, a 43.2 percent mark from 3-point range and

85.2 percent accuracy from the stripe as the Blazers continue their fight to stay within hailing

distance of the Wests eighth seed the combination of their win and the Dallas Mavericks

one-point loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday night tied the two teams at 30-34, 2 1/2

games behind the ninth-seeded (but freefalling) Utah Jazz and three games back of the No. 8

Los Angeles Lakers.

Its still very unlikely that Portland will be able to leapfrog Dallas, Utah and L.A. to get into thefinal eight John Hollingers playoff odds give them a 6.2 percent chance of making the

postseason and its an awful tall task to ask Lillard, Aldridge and Batum to produce enough

young-man magic to push Portland past the pack. But as long as he continues his recent run of

form, theyre not dead yet, and they remain a pretty darn fun watch.

If the clip above isnt rocking for you, feel free to check out the rip, run and reverse elsewhere,

thanks to our friends atthe NBA.

Source Article from

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/damian-lillard-tktktk-video-154651882nba.html

Waddywood.com Damian Lillard picks, pushes, puts in improbable layup in Blazers win over

Yahoo! Sports (blog)

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