The Portland Trail Blazers trailed the Boston Celtics by 19 points entering the fourth quarter with Damian Lillard on the bench during Friday night’s loss at the Moda Center.
It would have been more than reasonable for Blazers coach Chauncey Billups to sit Lillard the rest of the game. The odds of them overcoming such a deficit against a team with the fourth best defensive rating in the NBA (111.1) were bleak.
But with 9:26 remaining in the game, and the Blazers down 18, Lillard re-entered the contest prepared to at least try to pull off the improbable.
Almost immediately, Lillard hit a three. A few minutes later, the Blazers began to mount a comeback that saw Lillard score 25 points in the quarter and his team climb to within 113-105 with 2:39 remaining.
That’s when the Celtics put a halt to the madness by outscoring the Blazers 13-7 the rest of the way to win 126-112.
Following the game, Lillard, who scored 41 points, said he never considered giving up regardless of the deficit and time on the clock.
“Competing and fighting, that’s the minimum,” Lillard said. “You got to have that and I thought our team at least showed it. But that alone is not going to beat a team like that.”
The Blazers (31-39) shot poorly, committed too many turnovers, put forth little resistance against the Celtics’ offense (also ranked fourth in defensive rating) and pretty much played into the hands of Boston for most of the night.
But even with the team’s playoff hopes fading with each defeat (they’ve now lost 10 of their last 13), the Blazers appear determined to at least go out kicking and screaming.
Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard, right, blocks the shot of Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown, during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Portland, Ore., Friday, March 17, 2023. The Celtics won 126-124. (AP Photo/Steve Dykes) APAP
“I’m never surprised by the fight that we show,” Billups said. “That’s just who we are.”
Throughout his career, Lillard has viewed deficits as a mathematical equation to solve. Deficit plus time remaining equals Dame Time. Win or lose.
But first comes the effort.
“I think you just continue to play,” Lillard said. “I’ve been a part of games where we’ve had leads like that and even when we won the game, it still became a game.”
A 9-0 run can happen in three possessions that take less than a minute. Lillard approaches comebacks searching for that burst.
“Ya’ll know that I’ve always been that way even when it seems like it’s out of reach,” he said. “I’m gonna go out there and compete and try to make something happen regardless of how realistic or unrealistic it is and live with the results. But I’m never gonna just go out there and be like, ‘It’s over,’ especially if it’s six, seven minutes left in the game.”
The 13th-place Blazers have not yet turned their back on their postseason hopes. In order to climb into the play-in field, they must show the same level of fight demonstrated during Friday’s fourth quarter for entire games, especially against winning teams.
Billups said before Friday’s game that he hopes to build better team habits in these final weeks of the season. The Blazers, Lillard said, can do a lot of things well but they have too many lapses on offense and defense that lead to deficits that require improbable comebacks.
“The best teams, if they make a mistake, it’s not the kind of mistakes that we make,” Lillard said. “And they don’t make them as often as we do. And we’re not doing it on purpose. That’s why he’s saying we got to build up to that. We got to start recognizing those things and just be sharp at it and be able to sustain it for much longer periods of time.”
— Aaron Fentress | afentress@Oregonian.com | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress(Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook). Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts