How has Damian Lillard followed up his 60-point games this season?

Damian Lillard is on one of the most incredible runs of his career in the last few games of the NBA’s bubble for the Portland Trail Blazers.

Damian Lillard has put his Portland Trail Blazers on his back and carried them to the Western Conference’s 8th seed. According to FiveThirtyEight, they have a sturdy grip on a playoff spot with an 81 percent chance to get in. When the NBA’s bubble restart began on July 30th, they were under 15 percent and at the beginning of August, they had a 25 percent chance.

This is in spite of the fact that the San Antonio Spurs and the Phoenix Suns (still undefeated at 7-0!) have put up valiant battles to stay in the mix, but Lillard has made it clear that he won’t be denied.

At 5-2, the Blazers have done what it takes to get themselves into playoff position, and Lillard’s absurd scoring run is the biggest factor. Since the bubble began, he’s leading the league in scoring at 37.0 points per game and adding 9.3 assists and 4.4 rebounds.

Damian Lillard is shooting 48.5 percent from the floor, 41.4 percent from 3-point range and 88.5 percent from the free throw line in this stretch, but the last two games have been particularly torrid. In these two games, he’s scored 51 and 61 points, following up a disappointing outing against the LA Clippers during which he got into a verbal spat (and a social media kerfuffle afterward to boot) with Paul George and Patrick Beverley.

Needless to say, George and Beverley are not blameless in the list of reasons Dame caught fire.

After his 61-point eruption against the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday, he joins Wilt Chamberlain as the only player to score 60 points three times in a single season. It’s a spectacular feat and the most elite of company.

The Blazers need to keep winning to solidify their postseason spot, and Damian Lillard needs to keep scoring if they want win their play-in series and if they’d like to put a scare into the Los Angeles Lakers once they get into the playoffs. So we’re going to take a look at how he has followed up both of his 60-point games.

Do these games tend to carry on over longer stretches, or does Lillard run out of steam and taper off?

What happens after Damian Lillard scores 60 points in a game?

Lillard’s first two 60-point games preceded wildly different stretches. The first time he scored 60 points this season, on November 8th in a loss to the Brooklyn Nets, he did so by shooting 19-of-33 from the floor, 7-of-16 from 3-point range and 15-of-15 from the free throw line.

His next time out he scored a casual 30 points in a win against the Atlanta Hawks, which he followed up with 27 points in a loss to the Sacramento Kings, and finally just nine points in a loss to the Toronto Raptors. In this four-game stretch, the Blazers went just 1-3.

The second time he scored 60 points, he lit the world on fire for two weeks.

Starting with a win over the Golden State Warriors on January 20th, Lillard dropped 61 points on 17-of-37 from the floor, 11-of-20 from 3-point range and 16-of-16 from the free throw line. He followed that up with the following scoring run: 47, 50, 36, 48 and 51 points.

If you think his bubble performance has been great, check out Damian Lillard’s six-game stretch: 48.8 points, 10.2 assists and 7.2 rebounds on shooting splits of .548/.570/.923. Lillard averaged 28.0 field goal attempts and 14.3 3-point attempts over this stretch with this incredible efficiency.

And by the way, this time the Portland Trail Blazers went 5-1 over this six-game stretch.

As for this 60-point game, we’ll find out soon how the upcoming stretch will wind up.