Damian Lillard on Paul George’s ‘Bad Shot’ Comments: ‘If Anything, It Was Bad Defense’

Damian Lillard chucked up a meme inspiring 37-footer, which went in, to bounce the Thunder from the first-round. Whether or not this was the greatest shot selection (although worth noting is that the game was tied and Portland was holding for that last possession of regulation) is immaterial at this point because, again, it went in:

But after the game, OKC’s Paul George, who was tasked with guarding Lillard at the time, said that the attempt was a “bad shot.” That comment inspired many-a-social-media-commenter to call him some variation of a “hater” complete with baby emojis and some other stuff, but it’s not like that’s a totally ridiculous point of view. 37-foot is some NBA Jam shit:

Regardless, Lillard responded to his vanquished foe on teammate C. J. McCollum’s podcast by stating that George was “kind of being a poor sport” for his comments prior to calling out his D. “If anything, it was bad defense,” the Blazers’ All-Star said. “Because I had the ball in my hands with two seconds, and I wasn’t going to drive, so maybe he should’ve just bodied up.”

As for a transcript of his full comments, here is just that. In it, Lillard explains that this isn’t just luck, it’s something he’s practiced many, many times:

It was a good shot.

I think a lot of people don’t know what goes into the moments. That’s because they’re not the ones that’s there. I literally work on those shots. And I don’t work on it so I can just come out and just shoot it for the whole game. I work on it just because, over my career, I know how much attention I’m going to get from defenses. So it’s just like you’re just keeping stuff, adding more things, adding more and more, keeping stuff in your pocket, in case these types of situations do present itself. Even if it’s not something you want to lean on, it’s something that you have there, that you worked on, you spent time doing. So, you’ve got confidence in it when the time does come. That’s why, when I was just standing there, I was like, well, it’s probably not good in a lot of people’s eyes. But I’m comfortable with this, and I’m confident in this. So, to me, it’s a solid shot.

For him to say that’s a bad shot, that’s just kind of being a poor sport. If anything, it was bad defense, because I had the ball in my hands with two seconds, and I wasn’t going to drive, so maybe he should’ve just bodied up.

Doesn’t really matter now…either way that shot counts. As a result OKC is out (we might’ve already mentioned that) and Portland is on to face either Denver or San Antonio in the Western Conference semifinals, which they last made it to in 2016 (they lost in five to the Warriors).