Skip to content

Ed Davis: Blazers just need to keep games close, let Damian Lillard take over

Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports

One of the newest Portland Trail Blazers has done his research on teammate Damian Lillard, and he's expecting to roll out the yellow tape in 2015-16.

As Ed Davis sees it, the retooling Blazers aren't in as arduous a position to compete as some may think. After all, thanks to Lillard, they're playing a 46-minute game while everyone else is playing for 48 minutes. As Davis told FOX Sports:

We're a super-young team with a lot of young talent. We've got an All-Star point guard (in Damian Lillard) who will help us fight every night. When you have an All-Star, and especially a scorer like Dame, all we need to do is to keep it close until the end, and then get on his back and we'll be fine. That's going to be our main thing with all the games. We're just going to fight hard and in the last two minutes, Dame's going to take over and we'll go from there.

That's a lot of pressure to put on Lillard, but the 25-year-old just signed a five-year extension worth a reported $125 million, so pressure is to be expected.

And it's not as if Dame DOLLA doesn't have plenty of experience with the situations Davis describes. Last season, Lillard ranked eighth in the NBA in scoring when a game was within five points in the final five minutes of play, dropping 108 points in 159 minutes. He wasn't terribly efficient, posting a 48.4 true shooting percentage that was well below his season mark of 56 percent. However, scoring is more difficult late, Lillard carried a substantial load, and Portland outscored opponents by 9.3 points per-100 possessions in those situations.

Davis, who signed a reported three-year, $20-million deal with the Blazers this summer, now stands as one of Lillard's most senior teammates and could see crunch-time minutes alongside him.

Early oddsmaker lines project the Blazers to drop from 51 wins to 27, while ESPN's summer forecast has them at 31. Repeating last season's 12-8 record in games decided by five points or fewer, a record buoyed in part by Lillard's late-game shot-making, could stand to push that total a little higher.

Daily Newsletter

Get the latest trending sports news daily in your inbox