Saturday was supposed to just be another day of good wholesome fun in the NBA bubble, but Damian Lillard and Paul George had other ideas.
One of the day’s premier matchups featured the Portland Trail Blazers taking on the Los Angeles Clippers. The Clippers are one of the favorites to win the Western Conference while the Blazers have been making a late-run toward the eighth seed. Fortunately for Portland, finishing the seeding games as highly as ninth would still give them a chance to qualify for the postseason so long as they are within four games of the eight seed — a virtual certainty.
The point is, Saturday’s contest meant a lot to the Blazers, and it made their losing the contest all the more disappointing for them, as Damian Lillard came up short when the game was on the line.
With 18.6 seconds remaining in the contest and the Blazers down by one point, Lillard uncharacteristically missed a pair of free-throws, which arguably cost his team the game. On the Blazers’ next possession, trailing by three, Lillard also missed what would have been the game-tying three-pointer.
The Clippers would go on to secure a 122-117 decision, despite the fact that they played without Kawhi Leonard and sat Paul George down the stretch of the contest due to a minutes restriction. George and Patrick Beverly mocked Lillard after he came up short, and Lillard pulled no punches when asked about it after the contest, bringing up the fact that he effectively ended George’s career with the Thunder last season and also ended Beverly’s season back in 2014 when he was a member of the Houston Rockets.
“Asking me about Patrick Beverley, who I sent him home before at the end of a game, Paul George just got sent home by me last year in the playoffs, so they know that the reason they’re reacting like that is because of what they expect from me, which is a sign of respect. And it just shows what I’ve done at a high clip more times than not. So I’m not offended by it. If anything it should just tell you how much it hurt them to go through I what I put them through in those situations previously,” Lillard said of how Beverley and George reacted to his missed free throws.
Lillard and George then had a rather personal exchange on Instagram. George vowed revenge this season, while Lillard again pulled no punches and essentially called George a quitter after the superstar swingman asked out of both Indiana and Oklahoma City.
“keep switching teams … running from the grind . you boys is chumps,” Lillard said to George on Instagram.
Lillard is one of the NBA’s premier talents and it seems that there are a number of people that believe he’d be better off in a bigger market such as New York or Los Angeles. Despite this, Lillard has willingly and proudly spent the entirety of his eight-year career in Portland and he wears that as a badge of honor. George, on the other hand, requested trades from each of his first two teams in the NBA — Indiana and Oklahoma City.
Ouch.