Wednesday, April 24th, 2019

An NBA-obsessed newsletter for the info-craved basketball mind. Did a friend forward you this newsletter? Sign yourself up here.

Written while listening to Dame D.O.L.L.A.'s Confirmed

 Lillard: ascension    

For better or worse, Game 5 last night was supposed to be about Russell Westbrook. 

Nope. Damian Lillard shot him into obscurity, nailing a 40-foot 3-pointer with Paul George in his face to win the series, 4-1. 

(You can watch the series-winning game-winner

.) 

Then, he waved Westbrook away. 

Then, he had an organic moment years of commercial filming couldn’t recreate. 

This was awesome. This was unbelievable. This was sociopathic.

. This was a crowning moment for a great player, an instantly iconic sequence: The Shot, The Wave, The Look. 

And, as it turns out, he actually sort of planned this. Here's an article by Yahoo! Sports which came out after the game, which places Lillard at dinner at his house on Monday night. He told everyone there: 

"I'm getting rid of those motherfuckers tomorrow."

And there that bad man went. 

But this was also a sad moment for another great player, whose team blew a 15-point fourth quarter lead to get to this point, and who missed the would-be goahead layup right before Lillard’s time-stopping, obit-writing dagger. 

Westbrook left the court a tragic figure. Lillard made a 40-foot series-winner to get to 50 points for the night. Then he ushered his contemporary out, and broke the fourth wall. 

After the Thunder dropped Game 4 at home,

the thinkpieces rolled in

. Steve Kerr

criticized Westbrook's postgame

stone-walling. It was a bad time to be the OKC point guard, and, to keep it short, it just got so much worse. 

If this was a script,

would be laughed out of Hollywood.

But this was not a movie, this was real. And it was fucking insane. 

[

READ

: 10 reasons Damian Lillard’s series-clinching 3-pointer is legendary]

Now, can we hurry this thing up?

Three series came to an end on Tuesday night. Lillard’s shot was the night cap,

but the Raptors and 76ers started it off by mercy-killing the Magic and the Nets

. 

• The Bucks and Celtics did the same thing on Monday and Sunday, respectively, which means Boston and Milwaukee will play each other in the second round, and Toronto and Philadelphia will match up as well. 

• The only three series yet to be decided are Spurs-Nuggets, Jazz-Rockets, and Warriors-Clippers, though Golden State and Houston are a formality away from setting up perhaps the greatest second-round series ever. 

• The Nuggets blew out the Spurs last night to take a 3-2 series lead; we have a better feel for who will play in the 2029 NBA Finals than we do for this series, though it’s at least been close. 

• In 2013-14, five of eight first-round series went seven games. So far this year, we’ve had two sweeps and three series end in five games. Two more are likely to end in five. The other -- Spurs-Nuggets -- will go six or seven. 

• So, you could say the competition so far has been lacking. So lacking, in fact, that the Inside the NBA crew broke out super soakers on Sunday night. 

• The good news: The second round is going to epic. 

[

READ

: In rematch, Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Bucks and Kyrie Irving’s Celtics are both different beasts]

OKC-Portland links

• Tweets 538's Chris Herring: For the series, Lillard shot 10-of-18 from 30 feet and beyond. 

• Here’s a Twitter thread of every series-ending buzzer-beater in NBA history. 

• Enes Kanter hit Billy Donovan with an unreal troll job after the game, tweeting, “CAN play Kanter,” which is referencing a 2017 slip of the tongue from Donovan when Kanter was in OKC. 

• Speaking of Donovan: Have you ever heard a player give an endorsement of him? 

• Here’s a courtside video of Lillard’s shot. 

• Here’s Lillard’s interview on the court after the game.  

• Terry Stotts almost clowned Westbrook after the game, in effect clowning Westbrook after the game. 

• Paul George called Lillard's game-winner a bad shot. Lillard tweeted his thoughts.

• Here's Seth Curry telling the OKC bench that Lillard was about to end the game. 

• Jusuf Nurkic arrived at the Moda Center in the third quarter last night and broke out a very anti-Westbrook shirt after the win. 

• Remember the regular season long-range game-winner Steph Curry hit against OKC in 2016? The whole sequence was similar to last night's. 

  Quick Hits

• Whatever sad soul gets coerced into coaching the Suns, who fired Igor Kokoskov after one season, will be Devin Booker’s fifth coach in his first five seasons.

• Jimmy Butler has a pretty hilarious pregame routine involving his equipment manager.  

• Blake Griffin, who played through a leg injury for both of Detroit’s home losses, shook every media member’s hand in his final press availability, which is akin to Peyton Manning saying a reporter’s name back to him or her after a question to make them feel special.  

• Luke Walton is being sued for sexual assault. 

 Concrete Reads 

• Building around Russell Westbrook ain’t easy [The Ringer]

• Dedicated Russell Westbrook stays late after practice to miss 100 extra shots [The Onion]

• Inside the secret team dinners that have built the Spurs' dynasty [ESPN]

  Podcast Pick

• Berry Tramel of the Oklahoman explains to Alex Kennedy where the Westbrook-next question feud came from [HoopsHype]