The Portland Trail Blazers lost to the Golden State Warriors by 45 points on Saturday night, their sixth defeat in seven games. That was more than guard Damian Lillard could take.
A frustrated Lillard called out the entire team after the blowout loss, essentially saying they played with no heart.
“Man, it’s OK to turn the ball over, it’s OK to make mistakes, but we have to play with some damn heart and compete out there,” Lillard said, via Chris Haynes of ESPN.
Lillard called out the team directly, repeating his points for the assembled media.
“This isn’t about what the coaches are doing, this is on us,” Lillard said. “We have to take responsibility for what’s going on. This s— is ridiculous. We’ve got the talent; we’ve just got to put it together consistently.”
It doesn’t sound like Lillard’s teammates disagreed, as several of them said they felt they’d disrespected the game with their performance.
That said, this is a flawed roster. Even though they’re not playing well, the construction of the team isn’t ideal, and they may be trying to fix that going forward.
