Trail Blazers Beat Thunder 4 games to 1 in Round 1

The Portland Trail Blazers advance to round 2 of the Western Conference Playoffs thanks to an outstanding game five by DamianLillard including this spectacular last second three point shot from 37 feet.  You couldn’t ask for a better way to win the game and series.  His 50 points were key but this was about how well Portland as a whole played in this series against a very good Oklahoma City Thunder team.  Watching the games they played good team defense and had solid contributions all around.

As a team Portland shot 44% from the field and 40% from three while getting 33 and 24 points per game from Lillard and CJ McCollum.  Enes Kanter had a monster game one with 20 points and 18 rebounds while giving Portland 13 and 10 for the series. Maurice Harkless and Al-Farouq Aminu played well rounding out the starting five.  But for me it was the team defense.  As a whole they sagged off Russell Westbrook letting him take outside shots which he didn’t hit consistently.  Paul George got his but you’re never going to “stop” great players like Westbrook and George.  You just hope to contain them which I think Portland did a great job of.

Still I have to think Lillard comes out of this series with a few more fans.  Those of us who are fans of the team already know how really good he is and he really shined this series.  He went toe-to-toe with Russell Westbrook and beat him while looking good doing it.  Hopefully Portland’s second round series will allow even more NBA fans to see how good this guy really is. 

Can’t wait to see who Portland’s round two opponent is and if you haven’t seen the ending to last night’s game – go watch it!