For much of the season, the race for the 8th seed in the Western Conference playoffs has consisted of a bunch of mediocre teams stumbling in the dark and tripping over each other with no one being competent enough to separate themselves from the rest of the competition. Finally, after five months of this stumbling and tripping, we have ourselves a team that is finally pulling away from everyone else. That team is the Portland Trail Blazers, who have won 9 of their last 10 games (6 straight) and are finally at the .500 mark at 38-38. With six games left and two full games up on the 36-40 Denver Nuggets, it looks like the Trail Blazers are going to secure the 8th seed and give themselves a chance to take on the top-seeded Golden State Warriors.
A big part of the Trail Blazers' late season surge has been the magnificent play of Damian Lillard, who has put up 30+ points in 6 of his last 10 games. Lillard dropped 36 points at San Antonio and 49 at Miami, both of which were crucial road wins. Lillard is playing like a guy who feels he should have played in the All-Star Game and is really doing all he can to lead his team into the playoffs.
Of course, the major question in all of this is does this all really matter? I mean, the Warriors are going to breeze through the first round of the playoffs regardless of who they face, right? Without giving away my impending Warriors-Trail Blazers playoff preview, what I will say is that anytime you have a guy like Damian Lillard on your team, you got a shot to do some damage. The NBA is a star driven league and teams with guys like Damian Lillard always have a shot to make some noise in the playoffs.
What helps Damian Lillard is that he has a fantastic backcourt mate in C.J. McCollum, who is averaging 23.3 points per game. Together, these two guys are capable of making life hell for any team. Especially when they are playing up in Portland.
At this point, all I can say about the Portland Trail Blazers is that they have certainly earned the 8th seed in the Western Conference. While they are yet to officially clinch it, all signs point to them doing so. They're on quite a roll and Damian Lillard is playing like a man on a mission. It will certainly be interesting to see what will happen in Game 1 of a Warriors-Trail Blazers series should things continue to go as expected.
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