Damian Lillard Still Plays Like He’s Neck-and-Neck with Steph Curry

This article is part of VICE Sports' 2016 NBA Playoffs coverage.

To understand Damian Lillard as a basketball player, you must first understand his significantly less inspiring rap career. The idea that the Portland Trail Blazers point guard might transport his stunning on-court cool into a recording booth is alluring, but Dame DOLLA is unfortunately not an exception to the hard and fast rule that any MC with a convoluted acronym in his moniker should be avoided. "Different On Levels the Lord Allows" sounds like an abstinence slogan, and most of his tracks are hold-your-head affirmations and trite struggle bars delivered in a Public Speaking Course flow that only heightens their dorky earnestness. They are both the best athlete raps of all time and still pretty embarrassing. Shilling for an absurdist insurance company alongside a nightmarishly hirsute pubescent version of Kevin Love doesn't help.

This is not to roast Lillard, or at least not only to do that. His music isn't that interesting, but his commitment to it is. Rappers have been comparing themselves to athletes for decades, and for good reason: the best of each group share a kind of lunatic bravery. Claiming best rapper alive status and hoisting a 27-footer in the fourth quarter of a playoff game are the fruits of the same crazy tree. The thing is, Lillard occasionally makes those 27-footers. On the mic, metaphorically, he does not. He tries to do both anyway, because his self-belief is boundless. This is a helpful thing.

Case in point: Lillard was pretty sure he was outdueling Steph Curry on Monday night, as the two traded off-the-mark jumpers for most of Game Four between the Blazers and the Golden State Warriors. Curry had an excuse for his lousy shooting: he was rediscovering his sea legs after a two-week injury layoff. Lillard was simply off, or perhaps just helplessly swallowed up by Klay Thompson's elite length and ambient AXE-stank. Midway through the fourth quarter, Lillard had missed 14 consecutive shots. Predictably, this didn't stop him from taking more and, thrillingly, those late ones started to go in.

In the six minutes before the regulation buzzer sounded, Dame hit two threes, a lay-in, and a pull-up that left Draymond Green stumbling off toward Seattle. It wasn't enough for the Blazers, because the pitiless algorithm that is Curry's jump shot fully calibrated itself in overtime. But it was a quintessentially Dame Lillard-esque performance, not just because he pulled off some stuff but because his confidence was not one bit diminished by repeated failure.

Game Three had been another sort of adventure in Dameness, one in which he came out the locker room incandescent and never dimmed. He whipped no-look passes and jitterbugged his way to the basket. He scored 40 points and made half his shots, nearly half of which came from distant territory Thompson didn't think he needed to guard.

It was these ever-deeper threes that stood out most. Lillard is apt to take absurdly long shots against any opponent, but his striving demeanor makes it seem as if he has been shooting those DMZ triples at Steph Curry in this series, even in contests where the MVP has been on the bench in a blazer. The implication is that Lillard can swing a game with his beautiful ridiculousness, too. It wasn't so long ago that he and Curry were on the same level, both slippery point guards given to glitchy, rangeless scoring runs. Dame plays like they're still neck-and-neck.

Game Three is probably the last win Portland will see this season. Silencing Oracle Arena in a closeout tilt is too much to ask even of Lillard, and especially of Al-Farouq Aminu and Mason Plumlee and the rest. No matter what they do from here, the Blazers have already accomplished more than anyone could have expected, which on its face seems strange to say about a solitary victory in the second round of the NBA playoffs. But watch the way they and their star labor to keep up with this juggernaut Warriors squad and it's not strange at all. The Blazers have been heroic.

Lillard deserves the bulk of the credit for this, and perhaps the most astounding thing about him this series has been the absence of pessimism or inferiority. One of the oldest sports bar debates in existence is precisely what clutch is, whether it exists, and which players possess it. Lillard answers this in the breach; he makes clutch real and legible. It's not that he's so much better late in games than he is in the second quarter but that he weathers crunch time so coolly; his body is hurtling up and down the court, but his mind is on a porch sipping something cold and strong. He misses 14 shots and knows he's going to make the next one, as if he has composed the story in his head and is now telling it to you. That's what clutch is, really—less a quantifiable thing than the ability to transform delusions into fact. Dame Lillard does this a lot. It seems like he's always going to do it. He clearly believes he is.

Except he has one tell, a tic that betrays a smidgen of mortal human nervousness. Lillard puts a high arc on his threes, and when he lands he has a tendency to hop a couple times before the shot splashes down. Sometimes he will lean toward the basket as he bounces, as if he's mumbling to the ball, Get in, get in, don't screw me on this. It's the only real blip of anxiety from a player who is otherwise so certain and contained. It's the most human aspect of his game, the only hint of self-doubt he ever displays. Beyond that, he's living his own myth. Even facing defeat, overmatched by a better opponent, he doesn't flinch.