Damian Lillard's offensive performance this season can no longer be described by a single word "good". This season, he averaged 32.2 points on 20.7 shots per game, a career-high offensive firepower. And the secret to the hottest offensive performance of his career at the age of 32 is precisely because of the change in shooting patterns. How did he perform? Let's find out:
The Blazers have changed from 1 inside and 4 outside to 5 outside this season. Nurkic's improvement on the outside this season is visible to the naked eye, from an interior behemoth to an extended center who can throw inside. This change in positioning, combined with Billups averaging the ball at the beginning of the season, allows every player to have a certain amount of outside performance, which makes our attacking space more open.
Nurkic shot 36.1 percent from three-point range this season, making him a qualified extended insider.
Widening the offensive space makes Lillard's shooting percentage better at the basket. In particular, his individual singles performance has improved this year, and his speed, explosiveness and confrontation seem to be better than before last year's injury. In addition, his frequency of fouling on the inside this season has also increased a lot compared to the past. Lillard has never been the kind of play that pulls the rod to dodge defenders, but is good at fighting with the body, pushing defenders away with his left hand, while maintaining body balance and clearing room for layups for layups.
Lillard's penetrating destructive power is excellent
This style of play is not only useful when cutting into the basket, but also helps Lillard create fouls. This has been said before, and I will not repeat it here. And the advantage of creating fouls is that the opponent does not dare to overdo physical confrontation. Lillard has played in just 58 games this year, but has made 202 shooting fouls throughout the season and averaged 9.6 free throws per game, a career high. Since he didn't dare to physically fight, defenders gave Lillard more space when he let him go for a layup. Lillard's 0-3 shooting percentage this season is 67.1%, also the best performance of his career.
Excellent leg explosiveness makes his three threats difficult to limit.
When it comes to a lot of shot patterns, except for the basket, it's the outside line. Lillard averaged 11.3 three-point shots per game this season, not only the most in the league this season, but also the most three-point shooting in a single season except for Harden and Curry. Lillard's shooting pattern is very similar to Harden during the scoring king period, and he also relies on a large number of outside shots to replace quality with quantity.
Lillard has been the league's top stop-and-jump machine.
Looking at the 37.2% shooting percentage, it's not fair to these players who shoot a large number of outside stop-and-jump shots. When judging outside shots, it is easy to fall into the myth that high shooting percentage is good efficiency, but ignore the offensive positioning and shooting patterns of different shooters. Kennard and Thompson are good at shooting, but their job is to catch the ball after cover, and Lillard dribbles 10 times and then go around the cover, which is not the same difficulty. Of course, it is not to compare the two players with different positions of the off-ball shooter and the offensive initiator, or deny the tactical value of the off-ball shooter, and it is meaningless to praise and praise, but the efficiency of shooting after a large number of dribbles will inevitably be worse than these no-ball shooters, which is the conclusion of the league's data analysis in recent years.
Therefore, compared to other offensive engines, Lillard's emergency stop jumper shot this season has 2.7 outside shots, shooting 37.2%, and the quality of Bittrae Young (1.6, 32.7%), Doncic (2.4, 34.4%) and Harden (2.0, 37.6%) is better, precisely because of the aforementioned Trail Blazers' 5-out position. The Blazers' shooting percentage is very good, and the defensive containment standing in the bottom corners of both sides is great, which not only strives for the most cutting space for Xiao Li, but also creates more opportunities for Xiao Li to single or block at the top of the arc.
Lillard's long range also helped his singles unexpectedly. When blocking, the average player is to avoid the cover, when the long man sets the cover on the three-point line, the ball carrier is close to the long man when blocking the cover, and the POA is preferred. But Lillard's blocking logic is different. He will choose to go farther above the long man, or even 3-5 feet from the three-point line, and the purpose of single gear is just to create a change of defense, allowing him to find space for the outside shot, followed by a 30-foot shot. Lillard is shooting 35 percent from 30 feet above this season, compared to his average 37.1 percent three-point shooting percentage, and it's arguably that he's turned shots from 30 feet into conventional weapons.
And Lillard has been able to convert unreasonable shots into points over the years. Take Xiao Li's 71-point game as an example, when the hand feels coming, he can face Jabari Smith Jr. 6-10. His ability to ignore defense and range from long range has resulted in him averaging 4.1 three-pointers per game this season, the first in the league. The above offensive skills have allowed Xiao Li to brush 33 times 30+, 15 times 40+ (the most in the league), 3 times 50+, 2 times 60+ (also the most in the league), and 1 time 70+ (again the most in the league) scoring feast this season. Keep in mind that he only played 58 games.
He definitely has the ability to get rid of any defender.
The question is, Xiao Li's offensive performance this season is exuberant, but he can't drive the team's record, so is he a bad team brush? I think the definition of a brush is to hold the ball that doesn't match the strength and brush below average efficiency. Xiao Li, as the team's first brother and the league's Tier-0 scorer, shot the league's high shooting percentage. The 20 shots were just right for the team's bosses, and the team's poor record was also due to the defense, tank period and inaction of the team's top management. It's not so much that Lillard is a brush as his offensive firepower alone, which is really not enough to help the team make the playoffs.
This operation forced away the first person in team history, Joe Cronnie, you are happy.