Beware. When you mock Damian Lillard during a ho-hum regular-season game in October, it might be enough for him to flex his All-NBA credentials. That's what happened in Orlando on Thursday night when Dame dropped a Blazers record 34 points in the second half to give his team a 128-114 win over the Magic. Dame clued his assistant coach in on some of the footage of the heckling after the game:
The 2018 All-NBA First Team selection started the game in a bit of rut, which is probably what emboldened said fan. He was just 2-for-8 from the field in the first half, including two misses from the stripe.
"He just kept hollering my name," Lillard told Joe Freeman of the Oregonian. "'Oh, he don't want to play tonight. He ain't that good.' The whole first half, he just wouldn't shut up. And I got tired of it. I told him at the end of the second quarter, 'We're going to see.' And he kept on talking. And we saw."
In the second half, the ball spontaneously combusted NBA Jam style, with Lillard going 5-of-8 from deep and 11-for-15.
"He didn't have much to say [in the second half]" Lillard said. "I think it was toward the end of the third quarter, I looked at him and I was tapping my ear, like, 'I haven't heard you.' And he still didn't say nothing. So that took care of itself."
Lillard even brought up the fan in his post-game chat on the court:
Watch him catch fire and remember this lesson the next time you're a spectator at a Blazers game. You might think you're getting to him, but there's a high likelihood it backfires and you're the primary cause of your team's misfortune.
