Damian Lillard put on a show on Wednesday night for the Milwaukee Bucks. On a night that saw Giannis Antetokounmpo miss his first game of the season, the Bucks needed Dame to be at his very best against a Toronto Raptors side that was looking to repeat their early-season blowout win against the Bucks earlier in the campaign.
Lillard absolutely answered the call.
Milwaukee Bucks Coach Heaps Praise on Damian Lillard
Dame went on one of his offensive onslaughts against the Raptors on Wednesday, finishing with 37 points on 9-of-18 shooting. He also drained four triples while also going 15-of-16 from his attempts on the line. The seven-time All-NBA point guard rounded out his incredible performance with four boards, 13 assists, and two steals in 31 minutes of action.
Thanks to Lillard’s heroics, the Bucks secured a big win against Toronto at the Scotiabank Arena, 128-112.
After the victory, head coach Adrian Griffin was asked to comment on Dame’s heroic outing for the Bucks. As expected, the rookie shot-caller had nothing but high praise for his star point guard:
“I just thought he took control of the game early,” Griffin said, via Jim Owczaarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “He’s a master at just picking his spots and navigating through screens. What makes him so tough is you have to honor his three-point shooting capability, so you have to be up. And when you’re up, he has the speed and the strength to blow by you. I know from first hand it makes it extremely difficult to guard, I scouted him many years. That’s what makes him special. He really doesn’t have any weaknesses to his game.”
After seeing Dame go off against Toronto, it’s hard to argue against Griffin’s statement here.
You also have to note that Lillard has yet to fully acclimatize himself to his new team just yet. Once he does, he’s going to be an even bigger problem for the rest of the NBA.
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2 Comments
It’s actually pretty easy to argue against the statement.
Dame is still one of the very worst defenders at any position in all of basketball (ranked 333 last time I checked). I also noted last night the reason why the pick and rolls with he and Giannis don’t work: Dame set a screen for KM that was SO WEAK that it was clear that he wasn’t trying to free up KM, but to use the congestion created by the screen to get HIMSELF OPEN.
He’s also been missing wide open looks this year and could be closing in on washed up.
That’s 3 very huge holes in his game.
Oh, and acclimatize LITERALLY has the word climate in the middle. You have once again used a word wrong. It means to prepare yourself for WEATHER conditions. We use that word for plants moved to a new environment or a human being getting used to the temps before climbing Everest.
The word you were looking for is ACCLIMATE. We acclimate ourselves to new situations (acclimatize ALWAYS refers to new environmental conditions, never to a new situation that doesn’t involve climate; and since basketball is played indoors, the difference in Portland and MKE weather is immaterial). .