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NBA PLAYOFFS ROUND TWO: TRAIL BLAZERS vs WARRIORS

May 3, 2016

Damian Lillard

Oakland, California: Game Two

Warriors - 110, Trail Blazers - 99

Q. Six minutes into the fourth quarter, what happened in the fourth quarter?
DAMIAN LILLARD: Yeah, what happened in the fourth quarter? I mean, we played a great three quarters and they're a championship team. So we knew that the game would come down the stretch and we'd have to execute. And the whole entire game we were locked in and we defended really well.

We made things a lot tougher for them over the course of tonight's game than we did in the first game, and it showed. We were in control of the game and we slipped. We started turning the ball over. Shots didn't go in, and we stopped trusting what we were doing to put ourselves in that position that we had been in the entire game. When you do that to a team like Golden State, they're going to take advantage of it, and they're going to find a way to get it done, and that's what they did tonight.

Q. Does this feel emotionally like the kind of night the team has to go through as part of the learning process, a young team to grow from in the playoffs? These tough losses?
DAMIAN LILLARD: I think any loss in the playoffs is a tough loss but tonight especially because we were in control of the game. We had an opportunity to steal one on the road. Things were going our way. We made shots, we played team ball. We really played hard defensively. We were playing a great game.

I think nights like tonight they suck. It hurts to go back in the locker room after you play so well for so long and you come back in there with the L. But it is a part of growth. The entire season has been growth for us. But nights like tonight, we have to close that out. We have to get that done. It was just a missed opportunity.

Q. When you were taken out there in the first quarter. It looked like you had an exchange with Scott and you kind of laughed a little bit. What was that? Did you feel like you needed a breather there?
DAMIAN LILLARD: We actually laughed because at the end of the third quarter I looked on the board and my name was on the board, he drew up the play and my name was on the board and I was like he's going to keep me in. We're going to go for it. This is all we have. And when I was walking out after the timeout he let me know he was going to give me a breather at some point so like a minute. And 15 seconds went by, and that's what we laughed about. I was like I didn't know you meant that fast. I would have sat out to begin with. But we laughed about it, and I came back in a couple seconds later.

Q. What is it about this team and this season that leads you to believe you guys can recover from what was a pretty demoralizing loss?
DAMIAN LILLARD: Just because of the type of guys that we have, first of all. I know who I'm on the team with. I know the kind of guys I'm running with. Besides that, we've answered the call all season long. We've been in bad positions time and time again, and we've never shied away. We've never not answered the call. I don't see why this time it would be any different.

In our last series against the Clippers, we were down 0-2. We went home, and the next two games they were pretty much full strength. They had their guys and we got it done those two games. Obviously, Golden State is a different monster.

But we know the same thing can happen, and that's what we're going in there thinking and believing, and we're back on our home floor. We've got to go out there and play a game like tonight and go finish it.

Q. Is there a sense from the guys that you let an opportunity slip tonight?
DAMIAN LILLARD: Definitely. The game was winding down and I was just like, man, this was a perfect opportunity. We played how we talked about wanting to play on film. We played hungry, we played physical. We did it together. We were not fun to play against tonight defensively or offensively. It wasn't easy what we went out there and did, but I think it was maybe six minutes left. At that point, that's when you've got to man up and you've got to nut up and get it done. You've got to scratch and claw, and whatever is necessary. You've got to go out there and do it. And I think that's where Golden State separated themselves. They became the Championship team, and we started to kind of do things that wasn't going to give us a chance to win the game. That was the difference in the game.

Q. Steve Kerr talked about Festus Ezeli's impact in the fourth quarter and the pressure he put on the guards. Did you see anything from him that made life difficult for you guys in that fourth quarter?
DAMIAN LILLARD: I mean, you've got to give credit to Festus just for being prepared. He hasn't been out there for pretty much the entire game, and then we were taking advantage of them and taking coverages with the big men back and starting to take shots and they put him in and had him come up higher because he can move.

They committed more attention to our guards, to myself and C.J. I mean, I don't know. We gave the ball up and we were giving it to guys in the paint. You know, so different people probably see different things.

I thought Festus did a good job just being a presence, but we made the plays that we made all year. Hitting the ball in the middle, but shots didn't go in.

Q. For the first three quarters you guys were able to answer basically every run that the Warriors came at you with. Every time the crowd got into it you guys were able to answer back. What was the difference in that fourth quarter that made it so you guys weren't able to do that?
DAMIAN LILLARD: I think the last run they were desperate. The game was -- it got to the point where it was win or lose. There wasn't another quarter after that. It wasn't just stay with it. It was we've got to do it now. And they played desperate, and we just didn't respond to it well enough to finish the game.

Q. The fact that you were in it going into the fourth, how much confidence can you take from that going back home and the fact that you just came back from an 0-2 deficit in the first round against the Clippers?
DAMIAN LILLARD: We're a really confident team to begin with. I think we should really be happy with the way we played for most of the game because it lets us know that we can get it done. It lets you know that it's possible. That's one thing that we should really understand. We were in control of the game for three and a half quarters. We controlled the game completely, and we've got to understand that you've got to play 48 minutes of excellent basketball to beat this team, and we played 42. It can't be that way if you want to win a game.

So we should feel really good about what we did tonight, understanding that we're going home for two games and that we've got to be able to finish with that type of effort.

Q. You mentioned about how upset you guys were as you head back to the locker room. So what do you say to your teammates after you head back to the locker room? What do you say to them?
DAMIAN LILLARD: Just that it was a great effort by our team, and at the same time we've got to understand that a great effort can't go to waste. We can't let the game come down to the last couple of minutes and let our body of work tonight go to waste. That's when we've got to buckle down and do things even better instead of getting comfortable and saying it's our game. We've got to continue to work.

They're a championship team, they took it up a level. We can't afford to think that the same thing that worked for three and a half quarters is going to continue to work. That's what our approach was. We thought the game was just going to kind of coast and we were just going to win the game. But they turned it up a level and we didn't match that.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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