“Damian Lillard turned into Ben Simmons against France”: NBA fans react to the Blazers star’s abysmal performance in Team USA’s loss to Rudy Gobert and co

Damian Lillard has a well below average performance against Team France in Team USA’s first outing at Tokyo 2020 and NBA fans aren’t happy. 

Chris Vernon of ‘the Mismatch’ said it best: the first stage of grief is denial and if Team USA hadn’t added Jrue Holiday, they would’ve gotten run out. Damian Lillard and company most certainly did not show up the way they were expected to going into the group stages as they disappeared once the second half began. 

The main problem surrounding Team USA going into Tokyo 2020 was the fact that the squad consisted of alphas and guys who were used to taking the last shot. So, in an effort to seemingly put a rest to this narrative, Damian Lillard, Zach Lavine, and the rest decided to ‘overpass’ on several possessions and look to be a team player much too often.

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Damian Lillard got off to a decent start as he dropped 9 points on three 3s in the first half but would eventually end up with 11 points at the end of the game. 

Damian Lillard gets roasted by fans online. 

Dame Time was nowhere to be found as the Blazers superstar fumbled the ball in the closing seconds of the game to help get a bucket for Team USA in a desperate bid to get the squad back into the game. Team USA gave up an abysmal 16-2 run to Team France and allowed Nichola Batum to ice the game at the line.

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Damian Lillard shot 3-10 from the field and, of course, had the aforementioned turnover that led to France eventually pulling away. This was quite an uncharacteristic game for Dame as prior to this, he led Team USA in points, assists, 3s made, and steals during their four exhibition games.  

NBA Twitter was quite unhappy with the way Lillard handled the end of the game and didn’t hold back on the roasts and criticism.

This is Team USA’s first Olympic basketball loss since the 2004 Olympics in Athens, the same year that USA went home with Bronze instead of Gold. Another loss will likely lead to Damian Lillard and Team USA being booted from medal contention.