Damian Lillard Drops 50 In Trail Blazers' Epic Comeback Win Over Pelicans

The Blazers superstar put together one of the best performances of his career while helping Portland overcome a 17-point fourth-quarter deficit.

Notes, analysis, observations and clips from the Portland Trail Blazers' unbelievable 125-124 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday at Moda Center.

• This possession pretty much says it all about Damian Lillard's performance against New Orleans. 50 points. 10 assists. 20 field goal attempts, six three-pointers and 18-for-18 at the free throw line. Epic. 

• Well, another quick note on Lillard's instant-classic night that definitely deserves mentioning: The right hand injury he suffered early in the first quarter while making contact with Steven Adams on a routine pass. It's obviously not bad enough to keep him from playing, but the way Lillard protected his hand – even using his left to dap up teammates – at times suggested the Blazers would have been better off sitting him. This is a game, remember, the Pelicans led by 17 with 5:56 left. But Lillard, definitely fighting through pain, simply refused to let his team lose.

• Portland's unbelievable comeback mostly came with a lineup of Lillard, Gary Trent Jr., Rodney Hood, Carmelo Anthony and Robert Covington on the floor. Lillard was the engine behind the Blazers' 25-7 game-closing run, obviously. On one possession he drove the paint to find Hood for a wide-open corner three, grabbed the offensive board over two New Orleans defenders, then kicked the ball out to Trent for a splashed wing triple. Lillard did everything for the Blazers offensively, pretty much from the opening tip. Trent's aggressiveness, as both a shooter and driver, played a big factor in Portland's run, too. But the Pelicans' inexcusable late-game offense, an ugly trend this season, certainly made the Blazers' life easier defensively. Brandon Ingram was the Pelicans' primary playmaker, falling easy prey to traps in pick-and-roll and relegating Zion Williamson to bystander. By the time Stan Van Gundy finally got his team to re-prioritize Williamson in the clutch, his easy consecutive scores on Covington were coming in a one-possession game, during Lillard Time.
• Notably absent from that group: C.J. McCollum, playing for the first time in two full months. He was clearly rusty on both ends, lacking a bit of burst off the dribble and struggling to communicate with his teammates defensively. Portland also lost the early second-quarter minutes that have been a huge issue all season, despite McCollum's presence. Still, his first bucket made clear what his return will mean for a Blazers offense that often bogs down when Lillard isn't dominating.

Welcome back, 3J. pic.twitter.com/AFwQSRrHCp

— Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) March 17, 2021

• Lillard's heroics overshadowed another porous effort from the Blazers' defense. True to season-long form, they tightened up late, playing with a blend of intensity, connectivity and awareness that was sorely lacking for the game's first 40 minutes. Portland miscommunicated on switches, regularly got hung up on screens and on multiple occasions failed to matchup in transition. The Pelicans put up a whopping 120.4 offensive rating on Tuesday, a number that would have been higher if they'd kept feeding the beast in crunch time. 

• Williamson is impossible enough to stop when a defense is executing with effort and precision. No one would assume that Anthony could offer him much resistance, obviously. But Williamson found some of his easiest offense of the game when Anthony was matched up with him, on multiple occasions taking advantage of 'Melo's inattentiveness with simple back cuts. It's not like Anthony should have been surprised by Williamson's activity away from the ball, either. Even his self-created offense in the halfcourt regularly comes from running into passes and hand-offs, affording Williamson momentum to the rim that's impossible to blunt. Anthony obviously wasn't the sole culprit behind the Blazers' awful defensive performance, but was probably their single most damaging defender.

• The Blazers, led by a relentless Lillard, went a perfect 31-of-31 at the free-throw line on Tuesday. Another statistical oddity? Enes Kanter didn't grab a single offensive rebound.
• Nassir Little wasn't Portland's problem on defense. Even he was prone to some confusion when Terry Stotts pulled out the 2-3 zone, but Little's athleticism and activity defensively popped off the screen. It at times seemed like he was making two rotations in the halfcourt for his teammates' every one. Little, it bears mentioning, played his regular rotation stint on Tuesday – a sign his minutes will stick even when Jusuf Nurkic makes his return. Anfernee Simons, on the other hand, didn't play against the Pelicans, Stotts' odd man out with Hood as the last player off the bench.

Next up: at home vs. Pelicans on Thursday, 7:00 p.m. (PST)