---
title: Damian Lillard: Clutchest Blazer ever
author: George Mandis <george@mand.is>
date: 2014-05-02
tags: post, post, basketball, nba, blazers, damian lillard
---

<p>...or at least the clutchest Blazer in the last 15 years. Holy hell.</p>
<p>The final moments of Game 6 of the 2014 playoffs between the Blazers and Rockets had a such a swing of emotions over the final 30 seconds. The iffy out-of-bounds call, the Parsons put-back with 0.9 seconds left and then, this:</p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/mZKEJl-e_mc" width="100%" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=clutch">"Clutch"</a> is a tricky thing to measure, particularly vexing in an era of increasingly-advanced analytics in basketball <span class='footnote'>(I should figure out a way to write about the work I did for the Blazers in some super-generic, non-contract-violating fashion. It's hardly that secretive or advanced, but was definitely interesting.)</span>, but we now know the unit of measurement: Lillards <span class='footnote'>(The next, obvious questions: what does a millilillard look like? I think you could've probably measured Chandler Parsons previous put-back in millilards, or maybe some clutch free-throws. But Damian's shot — that was a full lillard.)</span>.</p>
<p>This is the best NBA playoffs in ages, oh my goodness. Overtimes, buzzer-beaters and game 7s galore <span class='footnote'>(I should also add: removing <a href="http://nba.si.com/2014/05/01/donald-sterling-terminate-clippers-owner-adam-silver/">Donald Sterling</a> from the league. Or at least, getting the ball rolling.)</span></p>