'I guess we could have sent 3 people after him': Lillard scores 60 as Blazers beat Jazz

SALT LAKE CITY — Everyone knew Damian Lillard was pulling up.

It didn't matter that he was guarded. Or that he was 35 feet from the rim. Or that there were still 15 seconds on the shot clock. At that late point in the third quarter, if Lillard could see the rim, it was a good shot.

So the only surprise, then, was when Lillard picked up his dribble and let the deep 3-pointer fly — and it missed. That was a rarity on Wednesday night in Portland.

The former Weber State guard scored 60 points as the Trail Blazers topped the Jazz 134-124 at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon. Lillard was 21-of-29 from the field and hit nine 3-pointers as he came up 2 points short of a career high. At one point during the game, he even scored 20 straight points for the Blazers.

"I think any time you score 60 points it's special, but I think this one I just felt like it came pretty simple," Lillard said. "I thought I played the game as it should've been played. I knew we needed to win, so I came out with a mentality to attack and be aggressive, but it wasn't like I just came out on fire. It wasn't one of those games."

He'll get no argument from Jazz coach Will Hardy.

"I guess, in theory, we could have sent three people after him. I'm not sure that would have worked either," Hardy deadpanned.

That was praise for Lillard, who easily split double teams, dribbled away from traps, and found open guys on the rare instance the Jazz managed to get the ball out of his hands. But it was also a sharp critique to his own team.

Yes, Lillard was brilliant. Scoring 60 points, even with the scoring outbursts the league has seen this season, is still notable. The Jazz, though, didn't make Lillard's life very difficult.

Utah started out in drop coverage, but Lillard found open shots when Utah defenders died on screens. So as a counter, the Jazz started sending doubles at the perennial All-Star. The problem, though, was the timing of the doubles were often off, and the traps were often ineffective.

"We did not do a good enough job with our pickup points on Lillard," Hardy said. "And then we were almost double teaming in the entire game, and he found a way to go away from the double, split to double, so I just don't think we were very detailed in our execution of the double teams."

Heck, Hardy thinks that might've opened even more up for him. Instead of hitting 3s off of a pick and roll, suddenly he was splitting doubles and having the whole court to work with.

"I feel like he scored more points once we started doing that than then the first way. … In some ways, it may have opened up a lot of other things," Hardy said. "So he's a tough player to double team because he doesn't just give into it, and he gets really low with his dribble."

It was reminiscent of what Kyrie Iriving did to Utah last week when he scored 48 points in a Brooklyn Nets win over Utah — showing the Jazz didn't learn much from that game.

With the star showing, Lillard became the first player in history to score 50 or more points against the Jazz three times. That's poetic for a player who once rapped, "The Jazz up the road, I wanna play for Jerry Sloan."

The Jazz jumped out to a 31-19 lead after the first quarter, but it was all Blazers after that. Portland scored 83 points in the second and third quarters to gain some separation. Lillard scored 17 points in the second quarter and then lit up the Jazz for 24 points in the third quarter.

"We came out strong. We knew how important the game was especially for the standings. And we kind of let off the gas," Malik Beasley said.

The Jazz dropped to a 25-26 record on the year and fell to 10th in the Western Conference standings — though they remain just two games out of fourth and home court advantage.

But as the Jazz let up — at least defensively (Utah tied its season high with 20 made 3s) — Lillard took over. The former Wildcat star had 50 points before the fourth quarter even started.

In the rare instances the Jazz forced the ball out of his hands, it even led to easy dunks. Lillard had eight assists and seven rebounds to go along with his big scoring night.

The Jazz cut the lead down to seven with about five minutes remaining, but Portland answered with an 8-0 run, which included three wide-open dunks at the rim, to put the game away.

"We weren't getting matched up, we weren't communicating and didn't protect the basket," Hardy said.

And they didn't get the win as a result.

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