Who doesn't love Logo Lillard!?
Trail Blazers five-time All-Star Damian Lillard has continued to extend his range and now he says with how comfortable he feels from shooting right at half-court, we could expect some extra deep Lillard threes this season.
“It’s very possible,” Lillard said with a confident smile Tuesday when asked if he would be shooting from half-court this year.
Download and subscribe to the Talkin' Blazers Podcast
And not to worry, Lillrd has informed his head coach Terry Stotts.
Lillard has expanded his range, that's for sure.
He added that we shouldn’t expect him firing up a half-court shot every game or even “every 20 games.”
The 30-year-old point guard said it might just be once or twice this season that he pulls up from 47 feet, but he added, “I do it for the challenge and the fun as well.”
This is not new and has evolved over the past year. Lillard has been talking about shooting from the half-court line since the pandemic started and the NBA season was put on pause.
“I can pull up from half-court comfortably,” Lillard told TNT’s Ernie Johnson back in April.
And he did just that.
Lillard drained a near half-court shot against the Brooklyn Nets to help the Blazers secure the win in Portland’s eighth and final seeding game.
"The game in the bubble against Brooklyn, it was like – we was down seven, I think under seven minutes, I couldn’t get a shot off. They was double teaming me at half-court… We went from being hot to being cold… I’m not going to say that it was the best shot, but it was a shot that I could get off and it happened to be a shot that I spend time shooting.”
From the sounds of it, the half-court shot is now officially part of Lillard’s arsenal.
The Trail Blazers floor captain said it will depend on the feel of the game and if he has the hot hand from deep, and if he does, a half-court shot is not out of the question.
With Trail Blazers practice footage of Lillard’s comfortable half-court shots, we can all see how he is able to shoot them with such ease.
But one thing, Trail Blazers head coach Terry Stotts along with Lillard’s teammate CJ McCollum, they want to make sure Lillard knows he needs to – MAKE THE HALF-COURT SHOT.
Coach Stotts added that he won’t ever tell Lillard not to shoot half-court shots, as he said that he thinks Lillard “would make that decision on his own.”
See, Coach Stotts is all of Rip City.
Lillard’s deep range just keeps on getting deeper and now with the blessing from Coach Stotts, Logo Lillard won’t just be from 30 feet, it’ll be 30 plus or perhaps 47 feet will become Lillard’s new normal.