Damian Lillard is the heart and soul of the Portland Trail Blazers franchise. They'll only go as far as he can carry them.
In Game 4 against the Denver Nuggets, Lillard didn't exactly carry them very far. He was absolutely putrid in that game, scoring just 10 points on a ghastly 1-for-10 shooting from the field.
That's why it's surprising to look at the box score of Game 4 in their playoff series against the Denver Nuggets and find out that the Blazers actually won by by 20. His supporting cast stepped up in his stead, with Normal Powell and CJ McCollum combining for 50 points, with Jusuf Nurkic and Carmelo Anthony pouring in 17 and 12 points respectively.
With their win, the Blazers broke a Damian Lillard-related curse that's plagued them for over half a decade – winning when Damian Lillard plays like garbage.
Before today, the last time the Blazers won a game with Lillard scoring 10 points or fewer was…
vs the Nuggets in 2015.
(Submitted by @KohlhuberN) pic.twitter.com/bI58WvLBhP
— StatMuse (@statmuse) May 30, 2021
Now to be fair to the Blazers, they don't exactly get a ton of opportunities to break the curse, given that Damian Lillard isn't susceptible to nights where he scores 10 or less points. But it's still a streak that's lasted since the 2014-15 season, when they beat the very same Nuggets on March 28th, 2015.
To make you understand how long ago that was, Nikola Jokic was still in Europe at the time and LaMarcus Aldridge led all scorers with 32 points. Jusuf Nurkic was a rookie playing for Denver. Their starting center was the Blazers' friend J.J. Hickson and their second-leading scorer was Randy Foye, who we all know as the man we traded for Brandon Roy on draft night.
Between then and now, Lillard has scored 10 or less in just six contests, which all resulted in losses. Interestingly enough, the four times before that streak, including the 2015 Nuggets win, the Blazers had won four straight contests when Lillard did the same. Basketball is weird.
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