The Portland Trail Blazers are currently in the midst of their toughest stretch of the season, having lost four in a row entering their Thursday night game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Thus, Damian Lillard knew what he had to do and put the Blazers on his back once more as he tallied a season-high 50 points on 16-28 shooting from the field, doing everything in his power to will his team to victory.
However, it wasn't enough. The Cavs were able to weather Damian Lillard's outburst as they took home a 119-113 victory to send the Blazers reeling into their longest losing streak of the campaign. After such a strong start to the season, the Blazers have now fallen all the way to 11th in the standings with a 19-22 record.
Nevertheless, Damian Lillard is confident in his team's chances of turning things around, especially when other teams in the Western Conference haven't been able to gain much separation from the rest of the pack.
“Obviously we expected ourselves to be better off than we are right now. But the positive side of it is a lot of teams are letting games slip away. So we still in the mix. But then it sucks that we're letting opportunities slip away,” Lillard told reporters following the game. “It's a lot of season left. It's a lot of opportunity for us to grow. I'm optimistic about how well it can go moving forward.”
Damian Lillard is no stranger to adversity, so at the very least, he could equip the Blazers with the mentality needed to weather future storms. According to Tankathon, the Blazers have the ninth-most difficult schedule remaining in the NBA.
Still, the Blazers have a league-high 24 more home games remaining, which will help them turn things around, especially when Lillard won't be able to shoulder this heavy of an offensive burden on a nightly basis much like he did against the Cavs.
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