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Damian Lillard had an encouraging thought about the Golden State Warriors immediately after his Game 7 win Sunday.
“They’re due,” the Portland Trail Blazers star said, indicating a series loss could be coming soon.
However, Lillard later said at media availability that he didn’t say that, per Trail Blazers reporter Casey Holdahl.
Lillard’s words supposedly came in a response to a ball boy discussing the upcoming round with him, per Royce Young of ESPN.com. The Trail Blazers were certainly confident at that moment, immediately after a 100-96 win over the Denver Nuggets to reach the Western Conference Finals.
Of course, beating the Warriors will be a whole different challenge.
Golden State has won the last two NBA titles and has won the West in each of the last four years. The consistent winning could make them “due” for a loss if they were an average team getting lucky, but they have been dominant throughout this stretch.
In only two series of the past three years has the team even faced an elimination game in the West—last year’s Western Conference Finals against the Houston Rockets and 2016’s against the Oklahoma City Thunder—and the squad has only lost 14 total playoff games in that stretch.
For perspective, the Blazers lost 10 straight playoff games coming into this year’s postseason.
This is part of the reason why Portland is a significant underdog going into the upcoming series:
B/R Betting @br_betting
Will the Warriors roll to their 5th straight finals?
https://t.co/7VbrAFYvhg
However, Lillard and CJ McCollum have each showed the ability to take over games this postseason and they have a chance to keep it going in the conference finals. With Kevin Durant less than 100 percent, perhaps Lillard will get his wish as he tries to reach the NBA finals.
from Update News Topic http://bit.ly/2W5KEio
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