Two big things happened last night in the NBA. The first one is that Kevin Durant made his comeback to the court and the second one is an unreal performance by Damian Lillard.
After several weeks of absence the star of the Golden State Warriors, Kevin Durant was back on the floor this Saturday against New Orleans Pelicans. The Warriors defeated New Orleans 123-101 and Durant had a solid game scoring 16 points with 10 rebounds and adding six assists.
"I felt good putting my jersey on, running out with the team, going through the layup line," said Durant, who played 31 minutes. "It felt normal again. I'm a basketball player. I love playing basketball. It's my favorite thing to do, so to feel like I'm a part of the team, feel like I'm a part of this energy that we have feels great."
Although he was shooting 0 for 4 from the 3 point line, Durant head plus/minus ratio of 22, the highest of the game.
"I think I was good," he said. "I mean, I missed some shots that I feel like I normally make, but outside of that, I felt I played good defense, I rebounded well, made the correct plays; just tried to play the right way."
This is a huge news for all of you who are betting on basketball because the points who were split to the rest of the team while he was away from the game will now have to return to him.
This can present a little problem to the Warriors team because they caught an excellent form without Durant. In the first seven games after his injury, they had only two victories and five losses. After that, they made a fantastic streak of 13 straight victories. We are going to see how things are going to develop when the playoffs start.
The other fantastic news is that Damian Lillard scored 59 points and set the franchise record for the Portland Trail Blazers. His team defeated Utah Jazz 101-86 and they probably secured the playoff spot in the Western Conference. Only theory stands between them and the clash with the Golden State Warriors in the first round.
“I knew coming into the game that I was going to attack them knowing how important this game was,” Lillard said. “I decided early that I’m going to come out here and impose my will on them and see how it goes. I saw the ball go in and I was able to get rolling in the first quarter. … I stayed on the gas the whole time, and that’s what I felt like needed to happen to make sure that we won this game.”
Lillard was impressive on the floor shooting 18 from 34 from the game and hitting 9 3-pointers from 14 attempts. He added six rebounds and five assists. What was unreal is that in 42 minutes that he played he didn't have one single turnover or foul.
After this game, Portland reached .500 percent mark.
