NBA bubble play-in game: 3 takeaways from Damian Lillard and the Blazers’ victory

1. CJ McCollum comes up clutch for Trail Blazers

Despite the Trail Blazers posting wins in each of their previous contests coming into this play-in game, the news wasn’t all good for this ball club. You see, reports recently surfaced about the fact that CJ McCollum had been playing with lower back injury.

As good as Lillard had been during the eight-game tournament, the Trail Blazers would need McCollum to find a way to continuing playing through pain if they had any hopes of sneaking into the postseason.

Thankfully, that is exactly what McCollum did in this contest.

The seven-year guard poured in 29 points, knocking down 11 of his 19 attempts from the field. McCollum also converted three of his seven attempts from long range in 44 minutes of action. While the 29 points from McCollum were huge, it was the timeliness of his final points that was even more impressive.

As the outcome of the game hung in the balance, McCollum hit a step-back 3-pointer over Morant. And then proceeded to hit another jumper (also over Morant) with 1:21 left in regulation.

While Lillard certainly did his part (scoring at least 30 points in five of the team’s last six games), it was these pair of big buckets by McCollum that proved to be the beginning of the end for Memphis.