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By Joe Freeman
CLEVELAND — After Damian Lillard hit yet another game-winning shot to deliver the Trail Blazers yet another victory on Tuesday night, I asked him when he knew he was having a special night, when he knew he was “feeling it.”
“When he got off the bus,” Wesley Matthews shouted from a nearby locker.
Not quite. But Lillard sure seems born to makes special plays in special moments. His dagger three against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday was his third game-winner this season — if you count that driving layup against the Suns — and fourth in his brief career, and he says the secret to his late-game success dates back to when he was a kid.
When Lillard was growing up in Oakland, he and his older brother, Houston, played basketball constantly. And after every game — whether it was a game of HORSE, a game of 21 or an outing with friends — he and his brother always ended things the same way.
“Right before we left, before we put the ball down, it would always be, ‘3 … 2 … 1 …’ and we’d shoot that last shot,” Lillard said. “That was the best part. We’d play for three hours and that last three seconds was the most fun to me. I would never leave without hitting the game-winner and we always did it.”
So when Lillard burned Rodney Stuckey with a game-winning fadeaway jumper in a win over the Detroit Pistons, when he froze Alonzo Gee with a dramatic pull-up three-pointer in a win over the Cavaliers, it was just like those times when he and Houston ended their games as children.
“That’s the same feeling I get at the end of games (in the NBA),” Lillard said.
He loved the end-of-game moments with his brother. He lives for them now.
“I think for a lot of players, that’s kind of what you live for, that moment to kind of rise to the occasion,” Lillard said of taking game-winners. “That’s my favorite part of the game. When it’s game on the line, coming down to that last possession, that’s my favorite part of the game.”
CLEVELAND — After Damian Lillard hit yet another game-winning shot to deliver the Trail Blazers yet another victory on Tuesday night, I asked him when he knew he was having a special night, when he knew he was “feeling it.”
“When he got off the bus,” Wesley Matthews shouted from a nearby locker.
Not quite. But Lillard sure seems born to makes special plays in special moments. His dagger three against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday was his third game-winner this season — if you count that driving layup against the Suns — and fourth in his brief career, and he says the secret to his late-game success dates back to when he was a kid.
When Lillard was growing up in Oakland, he and his older brother, Houston, played basketball constantly. And after every game — whether it was a game of HORSE, a game of 21 or an outing with friends — he and his brother always ended things the same way.
“Right before we left, before we put the ball down, it would always be, ‘3 … 2 … 1 …’ and we’d shoot that last shot,” Lillard said. “That was the best part. We’d play for three hours and that last three seconds was the most fun to me. I would never leave without hitting the game-winner and we always did it.”
So when Lillard burned Rodney Stuckey with a game-winning fadeaway jumper in a win over the Detroit Pistons, when he froze Alonzo Gee with a dramatic pull-up three-pointer in a win over the Cavaliers, it was just like those times when he and Houston ended their games as children.
“That’s the same feeling I get at the end of games (in the NBA),” Lillard said.
He loved the end-of-game moments with his brother. He lives for them now.
“I think for a lot of players, that’s kind of what you live for, that moment to kind of rise to the occasion,” Lillard said of taking game-winners. “That’s my favorite part of the game. When it’s game on the line, coming down to that last possession, that’s my favorite part of the game.”
