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NBA PLAYOFFS ROUND ONE: TRAIL BLAZERS vs WARRIORS

April 19, 2017

Damian Lillard

Oakland, California: Game Two

Trail Blazers - 81, Warriors - 110

Q. Damian, when you were watching in the fourth quarter watching, what was going through your mind at that point?
DAMIAN LILLARD: At first I was thinking to myself how we played such a great Game 1, and we gave ourselves a great chance to start with but we didn't play a great game in the first half. You think you give yourself an opportunity in the third quarter to make up some ground. We were only down eight. We allowed them to create a little more distance, and when a team like them gets going offensively, and you're not as acute on your offensive end, it's going to be an uphill battle.

They got away from us. We made it hard on ourselves. But after I thought about that, I reminded myself that it's a series and points are don't carry over. So you can't get too emotional or too low about the kind of game we had tonight.

Q. Damian, do you feel this was an opportunity missed with K.D. being out?
DAMIAN LILLARD: I mean, obviously they're a better team with him on the floor. More talent and more weapons. But they were a championship team before he got here. So we didn't look at it as an opportunity of him not being on the floor. We knew it was going to be tough either way. Coming here the first two games, we just wanted to take one. We didn't do that.

So at the end of the day, they did what they needed to do and take care of them homecourt. We still have two games on our homecourt, so we've just got to try to lock in and go try to do the same thing.

Q. Damian, you and CJ were 9 for 34 from the floor. What were they actually doing to keep you guys from knocking the ball down? Or was it just a combination of the ball just wasn't going in for you guys tonight?
DAMIAN LILLARD: I think it was a little bit of both. I think they defended really similar to the way they did in Game one. If not a little bit more help, I felt like we were both surrounded by two and three guys each time we got past our defender. And we know that's how they're going to try to defend us. They're going to make it hard on us.

Game 1 we made a lot of tough shots and those shots don't always go in. So tonight they put us in that position, and you get shots that usually do go in, and you worked so hard all night that maybe those don't go in, and you end up shoot page the way we shot tonight.

But I says after the first game, the more aggressive team is going to get the benefit of the doubt. I thought they played a more aggressive game at the end of the floor. So they got away with a lot. They were able to play really physical, and it went into their favor.

Q. Damian, when you see them throwing lobs to their big guys and all their big guys scoring, you have to think about what the series would be like if Nurkic was playing. Do you think about that?
DAMIAN LILLARD: You don't have time to think about that. If you look at a guy and say, man, if we had Nurk, it would be different. We'd be down 20 by the time they turn their head back around. Obviously, we're a better team with him on the floor. But we've come into this series with coverages and schemes and things like that to handle that so we don't have that problem. And we've got to be better executing in those situations, so it doesn't hurt us.

We can't allow Javale McGee to come in and impact the game the way he has. We've seen him play a number of games, and he has his moments, but he's not coming in doing what he's been doing in these first two games. We've got to try to limit that if we want a chance to win games.

Q. How would you describe Game 3 or the importance of Game 3 with where you're at going into that?
DAMIAN LILLARD: We've got to have this one. You don't want to go home and drop this one and then, you know, even if you do win a Game 4, you're coming back here looking at elimination. So, like I said, they took care of their home floor. We play really well on our home floor. We know that we're capable of beating them. So going forward, we want to go and get Game 3. That's all we can focus on right now.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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