Although Portland Trail Blazers star point guard Damian Lillard and his teammates were swept from the playoffs on Saturday night when they lost a 131-123 heartbreaker to power forward Anthony Davis and the New Orleans Pelicans in Game 4, Lillard showed a lot of respect for Davis and the Pelicans.
While speaking to the media, Lillard opened up about what he thinks it must feel like for Davis to reach the second round of the playoffs for the first time in his career.
“I'm sure it meant a lot. In our six years previous to this year, he'd only been to the playoffs once, they played Golden State and got swept,” Lillard said of Davis after the game. “He's had it hard. I couldn't imagine what it's like going all those years, you know, not being able to compete in the postseason when you're that level of a player.”
It really hurts for him to lose, and get swept, but Lillard continued to give Davis and the entire Pelicans team the utmost amount of praise for their performance this series.
“I congratulate him. I wish the success hadn't come against us, but at the end of the day as a competitor, you can't be a poor sport when things don't go your way,” Lillard added. “You've got to give credit where it's due and I give him credit for his performance. And he's also a great dude, so you can't be mad at him. So congratulations to him and his team.”
A very classy gesture by Lillard, to say the least.
For Davis, he and Jrue Holiday could not be stopped on the night as they combined for 88 of New Orleans' 131 points. The star power forward exploded for a game-high 47 points and 11 rebounds, while Holiday went off for 41 points and eight assists of his own.
As for the Blazers, star shooting guard CJ McCollum had a team-high 38 points on 15-of-22 shooting from the field, while forward Al-Farouq Aminu and Lillard had 27 points and 19 points on the night, respectively.
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