Portland Trail Blazers superstar point guard Damian Lillard says the team is using the “We Believe” Golden State Warriors mentality against the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the 2020 playoffs.
The “We Believe” Warriors — who were the No. 8 seed — upset the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the 2007 playoffs. That's the season Mavs legend Dirk Nowitzki won MVP and led Dallas to 67 wins in the regular season.
Now, Lillard and the Blazers are trying to do the same against LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the Lakers in the 2020 postseason. Los Angeles has the best record in the Western Conference standings, while the Blazers needed a play-in game just to get in the playoffs:
“The main thing I remember, in my mind, we got BD [Baron Davis], we got Stephen Jackson,” Damian Lillard, who is from Oakland, California, told Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated. “I was looking at our team like, ‘We got the toughness to beat them.’ ”
“I look at it like, we know who LeBron is. We know he is one of the greatest. At the top of the list. We know AD [Anthony Davis] is one of the top players in the league. We know who they are and we respect who they are.
“But we are not coming into it like we are looking up to dudes. We are coming into it like they can get beat like anyone else. The respect is there, but we are not coming into it like it’s impossible to beat them.”
The Blazers defeated the Lakers in Game 1 to take a shocking 1-0 series lead. Portland will try to take a commanding 2-0 series lead on Thursday in Game 2.
Lillard, who was named the seeding games MVP, put up 34 points in Game 1 against the Lakers. The Blazers star shot 42.9 percent from the field and 46.2 percent from beyond the arc.
While the Lakers are still the betting favorite to defeat the Blazers in the first round, Lillard and his teammates are clearly playing freely and with the attitude that they are going to advance despite the whole world betting against them.
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