Portland Trail Blazers: Top 3 individual performances from the 2018-19 NBA season

The Portland Trail Blazers had a terrific season and reached the Western Conference finals for the first time since 2000. They eventually lost to the Warriors in a fairly one-sided series but still, their achievement can't be undermined. Very few people expected them to reach the Western Conference finals and they hugely overachieved.

The Trail Blazers have one of the best backcourt duos in basketball in the form of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum. They were superb throughout the season and were the primary reasons for the success of the Blazers.

Seth Curry, Nurkic, Maurice Harkless also provided good support to them. An ill-timed injury to Jusuf Nurkic apparently ended his season before the playoffs but he had played a big role till then.

There were plenty of noteworthy performances throughout the season for the Blazers. We will have a look at the top three individual performances from the 2018-19 season:

#3 Damian Lillard 51 points performance against the Oklahoma City Thunder

Damian Lillard scored 51 points in a loss against OKC

In a regular season matchup between the Portland Trail Blazers and the Oklahoma City Thunder on March 7, 2019, Damian Lillard destroyed the Thunders by dropping 51 points to go along with his 9 assists.

The match went into the first overtime. The Thunders eventually won by a scoreline of 129-121 courtesy of great performances by Russell Westbrook and Paul George.

Lillard shot an incredible 15-28 from the field and 18-20 from the FT line. He kept on driving throughout the match and made it very difficult for the Thunder defence. But he was trapped by the Thunder defence in the overtime period and the Thunders got their win.

CJ McCollum also provided good support in this match to Damian Lillard. He finished with 25 points and 5 rebounds.

#2 CJ McCollum 37 points in game 7 against the Denver Nuggets

Denver Nuggets v Portland Trail Blazers - Game 7

CJ McCollum had one of the best games of his career in game 7 of the Western Conference semis at the Denver Nuggets. McCollum finished the match with 37 points and 9 rebounds on an astonishing 17-29 shooting from the field.

McCollum put out a show in the later stages of the fourth quarter of this match. He made 4 consecutive two-point shots to tilt this heavily contested series in Portland's favour. The Blazers eventually won by a scoreline of 100-96 and reached the Western Conference finals.

McCollum was the sole impact-maker for the Blazers in this match. His superstar mate, Damian Lillard was totally out of sorts. The Nuggets got great performance from Nikola Jokic who finished with 29 points and 13 rebounds. This was a marathon of a series and McCollum game 7 performance proved to be the difference between the two sides.

#1 Damian Lillard 50 points in game 5 against the Oklahoma City Thunder

Oklahoma City Thunder v Portland Trail Blazers - Game Five

Damian Lillard had one of the best playoff performances in recent memory in game 5 of the Western Conference matchup against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Lillard scored 50 points in the match on an incredible 17-33 shooting from the field and his playoff career-high 10-18 shooting from the 3PT line. Lillard also called game when he made a 37 footer buzzer-beater three-pointer. The Blazers won by a scoreline of 118-115.

Lillard was on point since the tip-off. He single-handedly kept the Blazers afloat in this match and was great down the stretch to give his team the win. The Thunder got great effort from their two superstars, Russell Westbrook and Paul George. Westbrook finished with a triple-double and Paul George scored 36 points. But Dame D.O.L.L.A. was just too hot to handle.