Giannis, Damian Lillard complete clutch comeback in Dame’s first game against Portland
MILWAUKEE — For 11 seasons, the Portland Trail Blazers turned to Damian Lillard in the clutch. And for the most part, he delivered as the legend of “Dame Time” grew with Lillard regularly hitting big shots.
So, in Lillard’s first game against the Trail Blazers, it only made sense that the game would present him with an opportunity to send his former team home unhappy with a big shot late, just as he had done to so many opponents in Portland.
With the score tied at 102 and a little more than 30 seconds left in Sunday’s game, the Milwaukee Bucks turned to Lillard for a clutch shot to beat the Trail Blazers.
“Misdirection, throw the ball back to Dame, high pick-and-roll with me and Dame,” Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo said of the play call. “Dame coming off the screen. Portland is a team that is going to switch. That gives me an opportunity to go in front of the rim, kind of dive all the way to force the switch. At the end of the day, Dame, in those situations, he’s going to try to get his spot and do what he does, which is take us home.”
With Portland guard Malcolm Brogdon switched onto him, Lillard quickly went to work. With a quick crossover between his legs, Lillard started his drive to the middle, but that was just a setup to get Brogdon off balance before Lillard’s patented stepback move to free himself for a 3. The move left Brogdon over 5 feet away, and Lillard rose with a jumper.
And that is when things went in an unexpected direction: Lillard missed off the front of the rim.
But while that miss might have meant his team would come up short in the past, that is no longer in the case in Milwaukee. With the Bucks, Lillard has another superstar teammate as Antetokounmpo made two massive plays late to help the Bucks secure a 108-102 victory on Sunday.
Sandwiched between Deandre Ayton and Jerami Grant , Antetokounmpo did not have great position for an offensive rebound on Lillard’s miss, but he fought for the long rebound anyway and managed to tip the ball off their hands and toward the middle of the floor. Lillard got back in the play and managed to briefly grab the ball before losing it.
Antetokounmpo grabbed that loose ball and made his way to the rim, but Scoot Henderson slapped it out of his hands, and the ball flew directly to Bobby Portis under the basket. Portis went up for a dunk with his right hand, but the ball slipped out of his hands and flew all the way over the rim, where Antetokounmpo tipped it in to give the Bucks a two-point lead.
But Antetokounmpo wasn’t done making big-time plays.
Following Antetokounmpo’s tip-in bucket, Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups called a timeout to set up a play to try to extend the game. With Brook Lopez off the floor, Bucks coach Adrian Griffin chose to have his team switch everything defensively, and that left Antetokounmpo defending in isolation against former teammate Brogdon with 18.5 seconds remaining.
“You want to send him left. He’s a hard right driver, goes all the way,” Antetokounmpo said of his thought process defending Brogdon. “He kind of baits you that he’s going to go left and then goes quick to his right. Now, I knew that, but it’s kind of a shaky play because I want to contest the shot because I think were up two at that point, right?
“You want to contest the shot if he shoots a 3 because he’s a great shooter, but at the same time, you don’t want to give him so much space to drive to the hoop. And when he drives to the hoop, he has a great touch. You can foul him easily. So I’m happy that God blessed me with length and I was able to get my fingers on the ball and get the block, but at the end of the day, I knew that he wanted to go right, but thank God, I had great timing and I was able to deflect the shot.”
“That’s what he does,” Lopez (10 points, six rebounds, four blocks and three steals) said of Antetokounmpo’s block. “And it’s great to be able to have that option ready to go. Switch it up and have that option, it’s a bit more aggressive. I mean, no one really wants to be going against him one-on-one.”
After the game, Griffin complimented his superstar’s effort in what ultimately turned into a gritty win for the Bucks to move to 12-5 on the season.
“What can I say?” Griffin said. “(He’s) just an incredible leader, just has a great will to win and willing to do whatever it takes. On the defensive end, he’s getting stops, he’s getting blocks. He’s getting defensive boards. On the offensive end, whatever it takes. He’s coming up with huge offensive rebounds.”
In the end, both of the Bucks’ superstars made big plays to secure the victory over Lillard’s former team and had essential roles in a massive second-half comeback. With the two clutch plays late, Antetokounmpo finished with 33 points, 16 rebounds, six assists and three blocks, while Lillard added 31 points, five rebounds and five assists.
The Blazers opened the game by hitting 10 of their first 15 3-point attempts as the Bucks once again struggled to contain dribble penetration defensively and Portland created open looks from behind the 3-point line. At halftime, the Bucks trailed 66-50, but the gap grew when the Blazers opened the second half with a 13-3 run to put the Bucks down 81-55 with 9:09 remaining in the third quarter when Griffin called a timeout.
At that point, Portland’s shooting cooled off. The Blazers made just one of their final 13 3-point attempts after starting 12-of-19 from 3, and the Bucks started to climb back into the game. The Bucks rattled off a 17-2 run out of that timeout to cut their deficit to 11 but then suffered through another stretch of sloppy basketball to allow the Blazers to stabilize and take a 88-75 lead into the fourth quarter.
It looked as if Portland might be able to hold off the Bucks until Portis went on a personal 8-0 run and brought the Bucks within three points with 5:58 remaining.
“His energy is contagious. He plays with great passion. The crowd loves him, we love him,” Griffin said. “Bobby, he comes in and he’s like our X-factor. He can do it all. He can post up with his back to the basket. He can get on the offensive boards. He can space the floor. He hit a couple big threes. He’s out there defending.”
And then, Portland experienced the other side of Dame Time as Lillard took over for the Bucks down the stretch. Lillard scored 11 of the Bucks’ final 16 points, including the 3-pointer that tied the game, and assisted on Malik Beasley ’s go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:31 remaining that gave the Bucks their first lead since midway through the first quarter.
Being able to battle back into games and pull out close, comeback victories has become a defining characteristic of this season for the Bucks, and Antetokounmpo thinks it is a good trait to develop early.
“I’m extremely proud that; no matter if we face adversity, we always have a chance to come back and win the game,” Antetokounmpo said. “That’s a good habit that we’re building now.”
But that trait also comes with a clear downside. To pull off comeback victories, a team has to first put itself in a hole, something that has happened far too often this season as the Bucks have struggled in the first quarter of games. And Antetokounmpo knows the Bucks could make the grind of an 82-game schedule easier.
“Sometimes, we just make it tough on ourselves,” Antetokounmpo said. “Don’t get me wrong. I think Portland is a very good team, a young team that plays hard, great defenders, play the right way, but we just make it tough.
“We could start the game like (we ended it). We should not be down 26 and then try to win the game. That takes a toll on your body, but I’m happy that we were able to win.”
With a 26-point comeback, the largest in the NBA thus far this season, the Bucks escaped Sunday, but the team also knows they have plenty to improve upon to avoid falling too far behind against teams moving forward.
(Photo of Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo: Gary Dineen / NBAE via )
