How Damian Lillard’s iconic buzzer-beater put an end to all of it

Let’s rewind the clock back to Tuesday night at around 10pm PST. If you took a look at your watch at that exact moment there’s a high probability it said ‘Dame time’ instead of 10pm. He hit a dagger 3-pointer from 37 feet out, over Paul George, with the score tied at 115 as time expired. After the shot, Dame waved the Thunder goodbye as the series had come to its conclusion, but that wasn’t the only thing that ended that night.

Ballgame

First and foremost, the game ended. It wasn’t just any game by Lillard, it was the best of his career without question. Dame stayed on the court for the entirety of the first half as teammate C.J. McCollum got in foul trouble early on. The Blazers were up by 2 at the half behind Dame’s 34 points on 12/18 shooting. That turned into a 9-point lead with less than 4 minutes left in the 3^rd quarter.

That lead completely evaporated and then some. The Thunder went on a 30-6 run and the Blazers were all of a sudden looking at a 15-point deficit with less than 8 minutes to go in the game. They managed to shrink the deficit bit by bit and tied the game up in the final minute of the game with McCollum draining a jumper. George and Lillard each exchanged buckets, giving OKC the ball with a little over 30 seconds on the clock.

Russell Westbrook took the ball up the court and missed a layup, which gave Lillard the chance to close the game out. Dame calmly waited, waived off any type of play and just decided to go one-on-one with Paul George, one of the best defenders in the league. With 2 seconds on the clock, Dame took a little sidestep and rose up from about 37 feet out, shot the ball over a defender 5 inches taller than him and hit one of the most cold-blooded shots in NBA history.

That was his 10^th 3-pointer of the night and his 50^th point. A performance for the ages. But no matter how iconic his shot and night were, what came after was perhaps even better. Without showing any type of emotion Dame waved goodbye to the Thunder bench and then stared at the camera as all his teammates and family members jumped on the him. It created 3 iconic moments in less than a 20-second span: The shot. The wave. The stare.

The series

The game was the final chapter to an extremely competitive series. The Blazers came out victorious in 5 games, but no game was easy. They had to earn every game. For Portland, this series meant everything. They were on a 10-game losing streak prior to these playoffs and had been swept in the first round twice in each of the previous 2 years. Especially last year hurt, as they got humiliated by the 6^th seeded Pelicans.

The Blazers had to bounce back, or it would have been a confirmation that they are a regular season team and that Dame and C.J. can’t coexist in one and the same backcourt. But they did bounce back, and the duo balled out game after game. No, it wasn’t just the Dame show: McCollum finally delivered in the postseason as the Robin to Dame’s Batman.

For Lillard, this series had an extra motivation. He was going up against Russell Westbrook. The two have had bad blood on the basketball court in recent years (Lillard says that they are cool off the court) and it was a matchup between 2 of the absolute best point guards in the league. Dame outplayed Russ in every way possible and people start putting him ahead of Russ more and more now.

The talk

Perhaps the biggest reason for Dame waving. All of the trash talk and showboating by the Thunder ended when Dame made the ball go through the hoop one last time, and believe me, it was a lot of trash talk and unwarranted arrogance from the OKC players.

The first one is Russell Westbrook. According do Dame, Westbrook called him a ‘b—-a– mother——‘ and really got under Dame’s skin by celebrating every time he scored. “I think with him, he’s pounding his chest and talking s— and that’s what gets him going. That’s the difference between us.” Dame said in an interview with Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes. Westbrook would also rock the baby whenever he posted (Dame) up and scored, which irritated Lillard as he also did it on jump shots.

The second one is Paul George. For George, it wasn’t necessarily the talk, but more so his behavior. He went for a double clutch reverse dunk as time expired in their game 3 win and decided not to answer a question about the situation after the game, using Westbrook’s famous “Next question”. Even after the series ended, George couldn’t be humble in defeat and said that Lillard’s last-second shot was a ‘bad shot’.

The third and most disrespectful one was Dennis Schröder. The bench player went up to Lillard as he was talking to an official late in game 3 and started tapping his wrist, while Lillard had his back turned towards him. The gesture referred to his ‘Lillard time’ celebration. The Thunder were up by 12 with 2 minutes to go, while trailing the series 2-0. Dame said that it was funny that he had to wait that long to be sure they had won the game to start talking trash.

But instead of reacting emotionally and getting into altercations with the opposition, Dame let his play do the talking for him. He owned the matchup with Westbrook, proving he wasn’t the baby. He also proved all series long that that last shot wasn’t a bad shot for him. He went 8/12 from attempts from 30 ft and beyond and was 5/5 from more than 30 ft. He also shot 39.2% on 51 tries between 30 and 40 ft for the season. Just in case you were wondering, that’s a better percentage than Paul George shoots from 3-point land.

That just goes to show for the arrogance the Thunder had going in to the playoffs after sweeping the Blazers in the season series. Maybe, just maybe, if they had done some proper scouting or made adjustments throughout the series this wouldn’t have happened, as they certainly have enough talent. Instead, Dame showed the glorified role player called Dennis Schröder, who even Atlanta didn’t want, what time it really was.

Underrating

And to end it, he finally waved goodbye to people underrating him. Dame has been without a doubt the most underrated superstar in the league. The fact that he was voted second most underrated player after Jrue Holiday, even after being named first team All-NBA last year, proves a lot.

Ever since the series ended, Dame has been the talk of town and the media are still in awe about his ridiculous performance in game 5. He made a huge statement in outplaying Westbrook on the big stage and is now getting more and more recognition as the second best point guard in the NBA.

But Dame isn’t the only one that has been underrated, the Blazers have been as well. A lot of people picked OKC to win the series, even though the Blazers were the 3 seed. They counted Portland out after Jusuf Nurkic’ gruesome injury in March. Like I said, they were swept by a 6-seed last year, so that didn’t help.

Now, the Blazers and Dame can finally put all of that behind them. They held themselves accountable and stepped up when it mattered most. This team looks dangerous and could potentially put up a real fight in a western conference finals showdown, if they get past the winner of San Antonio – Denver. Until then, all we can do is trying to understand what happened Tuesday night when it was Dame time.