Damian Lillard made his return from concussion protocol tonight against the Houston Rockets. While he didn’t have a great night shooting the ball in terms of efficiency, he came through in the clutch with a crafty layup to put the Bucks up 1 with less than 4 seconds remaining. Doc Rivers saw this and immediately thought of another all-time great shooter he’s coached in the past.
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“Dame just has great courage, ya know? Reminds me a lot of Ray Allen in that way. Ray didn’t have a lot of bad shooting nights but he had one, if he had one shot to make, you still wanted to go to him.”
Doc with a Ray Allen reference on Damian Lillard hitting the game-winning shot despite going 6/18 from the floor:
“Ray didn’t have a lot of bad shooting nights but if he had one, if he had one shot to make, you still wanted to go to him. And that’s how you feel about Dame.” pic.twitter.com/mh7MhadzFN
— Gabe Stoltz (@Stoltzy3) November 19, 2024
The perfect example for what Doc is saying is when Ray hit the game-winning shot against the Charlotte Bobcats on November 24th, 2007. He did so after going 4-15 from the field.
Given just how prolific of a shooter Ray was, it was easy to have him have the ball at the end of games to help close them. The caveat with giving your best long-range shooter the ball during crunch time when he’s having a bad night is that he isn’t particularly warmed up and doesn’t a feel for the rim.
Of course, the threat of a guy like Ray Allen or Dame shooting is enough to have defenders close up on them to allow for a drive past the defender. Dame did just that tonight with his lay-up and spoke on it in his post-game interview.
“At that time, I know that I gotta make a play and live with whatever happens. Sometimes it goes, sometimes it doesn’t and tonight it went.”
As for the rest of his night, Lillard shot 6-18 from the field, going 0-6 from beyond the arc. He’s shot 5-29 from 3-point territory over his past 4 games and it seems as though he needs some more time to adjust to the Bucks offense.
Milwaukee beating the Houston Rockets is quite the statement win amidst their downward spiral. Coming into tonight’s game, the Rockets were 8-2 in their last 10 games with the 2nd best DRTG and net rating in the NBA. With this win, perhaps Lillard and crew could string together a couple wins to further boost their morale.
