Damian Lillard does it again! After having to come back against the Detroit Pistons on Sunday and nailing the game winner on a fade-away shot, Lillard outdid himself tonight by hitting a top of the key three to seal the game up. The Portland Trail Blazers continue rolling as they beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 119-116 on Tuesday night. This game was seen as round two of the Irving vs Lillard matchup and boy was it a matchup!

This game was somewhere in between the 76ers game and the Pistons game in that the three ball was not consistent, but the Blazers were able to swish a few, especially in the second half. The main theme of this game was that the second half, and the third quarter, are still so deadly for this team and they are still making phenomenal adjustments at halftime. The Blazers’ defense is still a major, major question mark as the Cavaliers pretty much did whatever they wanted. Dion Waiters had it going early and stayed hot throughout the whole game as he finished with 25 points on 11-for-19 shooting. In the first half, the Blazers’ defense was visibly slow and always seemed to be a step behind. There always seemed to be a wide open three to be had as the rotation defense got scrambled and the Blazers didn’t seem to get back on their man as fast as people would like. The turnovers were apparent tonight as the Blazers had 14 TOs by the end of the night. Cleveland scored 16 points off of turnovers and the Blazers are lucky that it didn’t cost them more than that. Still, the defense needs to tighten up and not just in the third and fourth quarters. It seems like the Blazers have to “warm up” to teams and wait until the second half to really take it to the opposition. The Blazers aren’t digging themselves into 20 point deficits in the second quarter, but it is still something that should be looked at.

However, this does not take away from the offense and the second half play that this team is doing night in and night out. Tonight the Blazers outscored the Cavs 37-29 in the third quarter and that was all the difference in the game. Again, the defense picked up and Blazers seemed to not be so hesitant. They got a lot more physical and were getting in passing lanes a lot quicker. The three pointers started falling and LaMarcus Aldridge finally got going.

Kyrie Irving made it interesting as the Blazers looked to be pulling away as they lead by 10 with 2:15 remaining. Then Irving hit back-to-back three pointers and made a driving layup to cut the deficit to 3. Varejao went to the rim and scored to tie it at 116-116 and the Blazers had 7 seconds to win the game. Lillard dribbled up the floor and drilled a 30-foot three pointer to make it back-to-back game winners. The freaky three award obviously goes to Damian Lillard. He hit two 30-foot three pointers in the fourth quarter, one to put the Blazers up by three with 5:47 remaining and the game winner. This kid is blossoming before our eyes.

The player of this game, outside of Damian Lillard, was Joel Freeland. He ended the night with 0 points, but he had 7 rebounds (5 offensive) and was a huge impact on the defense. Robin Lopez was in foul trouble all night and only clocked about 20 minutes of play. It seemed the team just played better with Freeland in the game tonight. Freeland was standing his ground against the big Andrew Bynum, he was also affecting shots just enough to cause missed shots. He just seemed to be in the right places tonight to grab offensive rebounds. He had a couple big rebounds that ended with three point swishes in the second half that sparked the Blazers’ rally. Stuff like that really speaks volumes on the effectiveness of Joel tonight.

Here are some stats from tonight. The Blazers shot 46% from three and were a little bit better than in the Piston game. They hit 15 of their 33 attempts and a lot of those came in the second half as the floor opened up and Blazer guards were just hitting them. The Blazers out-rebounded the Cavs 56-44 and that is quite an accomplishment. The Cavaliers have guys like Anderson Varejao, Andrew Bynum, and Tristan Thompson, who are really effective at grabbing loose balls. People forget that Varejao averaged 14.4 rebounds last year before he got shut down because of blood clot issues. Triston Thompson is averaging a double-double this season and Andrew Bynum is slowly getting back into game shape. This was an impressive work on the glass tonight. At one point the Blazers had 22 second chance points, while the Cavaliers had 0. That is a big and telling stat right there.

Damian Lillard has been on another planet recently and tonight was no different. On a night where you had a superstar point guard go against an upcoming superstar point guard, Lillard stole the show. He finished the night with 36 points on 11-for-23 shooting, a ridiculous 8-for-12 from three, 10 assists, and 8 rebounds and stole the show by nailing the game winner like I mentioned above. This was a nice showdown as Irving did not go quietly and almost single-handedly forced his team into overtime. Irving is a heck of a player and even though he struggled in the first half he went off in the second and made most Blazer fans have heart attacks.

I can forgive the FG shooting because Lillard’s three-point shooting was off the charts. The thing I am noticing now more than ever is his ability to get himself going. He was 6-for-7 from the FT line and is finding ways to score. He still needs to get slightly better at finishing, but I am not complaining after his game tonight. He should shoot like this from three more often. Wow.

LaMarcus Aldridge, again, did not have the best shooting night, but you cannot argue with his stats as he finished with 26 points on 11-for-22 shooting and 15 rebounds. LA hit a few clutch buckets as the Cavs were making their last push that held them off just enough for the Blazers to pull out the victory. LA’s rebounding is starting to become something I expect now. Last season, it was a good game if he could get 10-to-12 rebounds and it seemed like he would go off for 21 rebounds sometimes, but as this season goes forward, his rebounding numbers have finally breached the double digit mark. He is averaging 25.8 points and 12.3 rebounds in 36.1 minutes of play over his last 10 games. The guy is a machine now. This Blazer set up reminds of the Orlando Magic team that went to the finals. It was basically Dwight Howard and a bunch of shooters. Well, it is LaMarcus Aldridge and a bunch of shooters. It’s working out just fine.

Those were really the standouts besides Joel Freeland who I talked about above. This is just a magical roller-coaster that the Blazers are on right now. It seems like they haven’t lost their knack for the dramatic and have been able to continue rolling. The Blazers are now guaranteed a winning road trip as they take on the struggling Minnesota Timberwolves tomorrow at 4:00 PM PST who have been underwhelming given all the predictions about them in previews and so forth. However, this game will see a matchup of the two best power forwards in the game and I am sure Kevin Love is looking forward to proving people that he is better than LaMarcus Aldridge. Hopefully the Blazers get a good night’s rest as Minnesota is going to definitely get up for this game. Stay tuned!