Why Damian Lillard Seems Primed For His Best Playoffs Yet
Damian Lillard's outstanding play during the Trail Blazers' season-salvaging run was almost taken for granted.
Portland's team-wide defensive improvement received tons of attention, and rightfully so. Jusuf Nurkic rounding into near-peak form on both ends was a huge factor in his team's newfound success. Terry Stotts making the difficult decision to shorten his rotation clarified roles and cemented the Blazers' identity.
Those developments, as well as many more nuanced ones, came as a surprise, making it easy to believe they were the driving force behind Portland's late-stage turnaround. But if there's one element most responsible for the Blazers entering the playoffs winning 10 of their last 12 games, it's Lillard reaching the rarified MVP air he did back in February – before a litany of nagging injuries finally reared their head on the floor.
Lillard, who admitted in early May to starting feel better physically, averaged 30.3 points, 4.3 rebounds and 7.7 assists over the last three weeks of the regular season. He shot scorching 62.1 percent on twos and 47.8 percent on threes, even sometimes taking on the assignment of guarding the opposition's best player.
Lillard, basically, enters the playoffs dominating to at least the same extent he did while taking the league by storm earlier this season as Nurkic and C.J. McCollum watched from the bench. Considering how much fresher he's feeling now than even he did the last three weeks, it's fair to wonder if Lillard has an even higher plane of performance to reach – impossible as that may seem.
"Going into the playoffs I'm, like, feeling better and better," he said on Wednesday. "I'm just happy that coming into the end of the season when we needed to win games and going into the playoffs, I'm at that point where my body is just starting to feel much better. I feel like I'm able to do things that I know I'm capable of doing, so I think that's a positive thing."
No one is ever 100 percent going into the postseason, but especially after the league's borderline-irresponsible pace of 2020-21. Lillard is hardly the only marquee player who dealt with a series of muscle injuries, knee tweaks and thumb jams, or even worse.
Just ask Jamal Murray and the Denver Nuggets. Will Barton is still dealing with a hamstring injury that could cause him to miss a portion of the first round. PJ Dozier, fighting a hip injury, may not be available at all against the Blazers.
But Lillard? He's not only free of serious injury, but feeling as good as he ever has as the most critical juncture of the season dawns.
"In the past I've had times where I've limped into the playoffs," Lillard said. "Like a lot of times where I've limped into the playoffs where I was like still able to play well, but I just could feel myself wearing down sometimes, you know? I feel much better now. Even having this week off is gonna be really good to me, so I'm feeling pretty good."