(dramatic heartbeat)
- [Narrator] It's May 2nd, 2014.
We're in Portland, Oregon for game six
of an unbelievably tight first round playoff series
between the Trail Blazers and the Houston Rockets.
The Blazers have nine-tenths of a second
to try to overcome a two point deficit and win the series.
If the Rockets get a stop,
they'll host game seven in Houston.
Before we witness this moment,
let's examine the history in this building,
the feelings of these fans,
the compelling characters occupying the floor
and the way they've been deployed
for this crucial play.
Let's rewind.
(suspenseful music)
After falling behind early,
Houston has made this a 3-2 series on the verge of a tie.
Each team has enjoyed a comfortable victory,
but we've seen some true nail-biters,
including the critical game three Houston stole
thanks to this deep game winner
from little used Troy Daniels.
- [Commentator] Daniels for three, it's good!
- [Narrator] The Rockets now hope
to become one of the few teams ever to recover
from a 3-1 series deficit, just like they did
en route to the 1995 title.
Yet another series reaching seven games
would bolster what already promises to be an amazing weekend
of do-or-die basketball.
Exactly what the NBA community needs to wash away
the sour taste of this hideous
Donald Sterling scandal in Los Angeles.
Anyway, the Blazers want to watch games seven this weekend
not play one.
A two-pointer buys them overtime,
with a three they'll advance immediately.
The fans in this building could not be more on edge
because it's been a while.
(film reel whirring)
Portland was accustomed to contending.
The franchise won a championship
within its first decade of existence,
in 1977 under legendary coach Dr. Jack Ramsay.
Portland's deepest playoff runs of the eighties,
crashed into the Magic and Kareem Lakers,
but they made two finals appearances in the early nineties.
In 2000, the Blazers came tantalizingly close
to beating the Shaq and Kobe Lakers
only to fall in game seven of the Western Conference finals.
In short, every prior generation of Blazers fan
got to see teams at least approach winning at all.
Hearts got broke, sure,
but heartbreak first requires legitimate hope.
That hope has diminished in recent years.
The Trailblazers have not won a playoff series
since that Conference final run in 2000.
13 straight seasons without clearing the first round
is the longest such drought in the NBA.
Pretty wild.
So that would be a big hump to overcome,
and it would be poetic to do it this week.
Just days ago, the iconic Jack Ramsay passed away.
Coach Ramsay was a beloved part of the NBA community
for many years after he led those champion Blazers.
These jersey patches are the Blazers' tribute
to the late Dr. Jack.
Ending the drought would be another lovely tribute,
but you're looking at a whole crowd of hearts in stomachs.
Barring a miracle, this series is headed back to Houston
and the Rockets would take a lot of momentum with them.
That's the kind of progress they expected
when they added this guy.
This guy needed help.
(film reel whirring)
The middling Rockets made a seismic trade
for mega star James Harden in 2012.
And his talent alone was enough
to carry a post-season return, but that was all.
Harden's old friends in Oklahoma City,
booted Houston out of the 2013 playoffs in six games.
That'll happen when your supporting cast
is this bunch of solid, but clearly secondary players.
Harden needed a co-star.
And this past summer, Houston GM Daryl Morey got him one.
All star big man Dwight Howard was ready for a move
after just one pathetic, cantankerous season as an LA Laker.
He and Kobe Bryant never clicked, not even close.
Settling into Houston took some time,
but under coach Kevin McHale
season one of Harden and Howard
looked like a much better pairing.
The Rockets' improvement included
getting Dwight the ball more, involving him more often
and closer to the rim to create easy baskets,
to create space for shooters,
to create one of the league's top offenses.
And it's a good thing Dwight found his scoring
because in this series,
Harden hasn't been able to hit the broad side of a barn.
Dr. Beardface has connected on just 38% of his field goals,
including sub 30% beyond the arc.
Houston fell behind 3-1 in this series
thanks in part to some true Harden stinkers.
The Rockets took game five and extended the series
into tonight because Harden deferred.
Howard anchored the defense and led his team in scoring.
Chandler Parsons made some threes
and Jeremy Lin dropped 21 points off the bench
to compensate for a critical game four turnover.
Tonight, game six, marks Harden's first
efficient offensive performance of the series.
But most of his points came early on.
until moments ago, crunch time was all Dwight.
Howard's huge run stopping block on Thomas Robinson
set up Harden's only basket of this fourth quarter.
After that it was Dwight pump faking
to score over three Blazers.
It was Dwight losing Robin Lopez to do it again.
It was Dwight spinning left against Lopez to draw a foul
and sink both free throws.
It was Dwight, again, overpowering Lopez,
and again cashing in from the line.
Howard was the target for this post timeout lob
and made the tough lefty finish.
Howard snatched a loose ball and blasted
through a crowd for two and the foul.
Houston would be long dead
if Dwight didn't score 26 points tonight,
including 13 of the team's 19 in the fourth.
He dropped those 13 all in a row
with just two of his typical missed free throws in between.
But while Dwight kept Houston in it,
we got all the way to right now with some other characters.
If these nine-tenths of a second go well,
Chandler Parsons will be a hero.
He capped off a solid, transition-heavy, high rebound game
with one of the biggest put-backs of his life.
Harden missed a tough fade-away
and a mad scramble for the rebound
somehow ended with Parsons in possession
noodling in a last second reverse.
But rewind further because we shouldn't neglect that
Houston only needed heroics because of an unforced error.
Lin's banked-in three with under a minute to go
would have all but iced the Houston victory,
except big guy Omer Asik committed this foolish
offensive foul to negate it.
That was Asik's sixth, disqualifying foul,
so he's not out here.
Blazers' ball, less than a second to go, two point game,
and Houston's missing a starting big man.
Relevant because it looks like the first option
for this buzzer beater is big Blazers star
LaMarcus Aldridge.
He's been the guy in Portland for almost a decade now,
but this wasn't supposed to be a "the guy" situation.
After some years in the basement,
Portland began a turnaround on draft night 2006.
They swung superb trades
to form their big-small tandem of the future,
Aldridge from Texas and Washington's Brandon Roy.
Roy, the merciless scoring guard,
won Rookie of the Year in '07
and quickly became an All-Star.
Aldridge improved gradually
to become one of the league's steadiest young bigs.
In '08-09, the third season of the pairing,
the Blazers turned a corner.
An early signature moment came in November '08
on the same floor in a similar situation
against the same opponent as tonight.
On an inbound play with less than a second to go,
coach Nate McMillan had Roy flash toward the inbounder
to catch and fire this deep buzzer-beating three
for the win
- [Commentator] There's Blake to Roy, this is for the win!
(crowd cheers raucously)
- [Narrator] Portland rode that high to 54 wins,
but fell short in a 2009 first round series
against those same Rockets.
Even with first round defeat,
2009 looked like a step toward contention,
toward ending the drought.
It instead marked high water. Roy's knees deteriorated.
His diminishing availability consigned the Blazers
to more first round doom.
It led Roy to an early heartbreaking retirement in 2011.
Roy's premature farewell
and the equally sad misadventures of Greg Oden
left Aldridge as the lone star on a bad team.
And Aldridge really has become a force.
That losing 2012 season began a streak
of All-Star appearances for Aldridge that's still going.
In this very series he's posted
some all-time great performances,
especially in those first two road wins.
In game one: 46 points and 18 rebounds.
In game two: 43 points on just 28 attempts.
When this dude settles into his sweet spot,
he is unstoppable.
And if you had any doubt where that sweet spot was,
tonight gave you a reminder.
Aldridge has towered over the left wing like a sentinel,
destroying all defenders in his path,
mostly Omer Asik.
He bodied Asik for this early bucket,
kinda forearm-shivered Asik for another one.
He got Asik in early foul trouble with a quick one,
then a quick two.
Asik returned to guard Aldridge in the second quarter,
but good luck stopping this mid range magic.
get too close, and that's your third foul.
- [Commentator] Aldridge's on the edge, got the foul.
Oh! Aldridge again!
(crowd cheering)
- [Narrator] And you can have a third foul too Dwight.
Aldridge cooled a bit in the second half,
but this ESPN graphic in the third quarter
hammered home the place you absolutely
do not want to let LaMarcus operate. Right...
...well, right around here.
Aldridge alone on the strong side,
which happens to be his office, is an important assignment.
The Rockets thankfully planned around that
before it was too late.
When the teams first set up for this play
coach McHale had Howard pestering
the inbounder Nicolas Batum.
With Asik fouled out, that left Harden assigned
to the much, much taller Aldridge.
Parsons got to look at that and said,
"hold up, hold up. No, no, no". And called time out.
Fast forward to right now,
and you've got more sensible assignments.
The tall-ish Terrence Jones
is in the game to cover the inbound.
Aldridge is guarded more appropriately by Howard
and Dwight's using his strength to make this pass difficult,
which makes one wonder what's going on over here.
This is Damian Lillard, who at first,
looked all casual with his head cocked
and his shoulders slumped until the whistle blew,
and uh-oh,
(film reel whirring)
So yeah, when the Blazers truly fell apart in 2012,
they got a lottery pick.
They weren't bad enough to have much chance
of snagging a sure thing like Anthony Davis
and with the sixth pick, drafted an upperclassman
from a school most people haven't heard of.
Damian Lillard got very little hype
as a high school prospect.
That's how an Oakland kid ended up
playing point guard for Weber State University.
Even in Ogden, Utah, Lillard bloomed
into the national spotlight.
In his red shirt junior season,
Lillard put up truly obscene scoring numbers.
The deadliest point guard in the nation
was a Weber State Wildcat.
And lest anyone attribute Lillard's college excellence
to inferior competition,
Dame shredded like a buzzsaw through his first NBA season.
Over Davis, over Bradley Beal, over Andre Drummond,
Lillard was unanimous 2013 Rookie of the Year.
Here in year two, the 23 year old joined Aldridge
on the All-Star team, and helped get the Blazers
back here into the postseason.
Portland will never forget Aldridge's original co-star
who once chucked a dagger through these Rockets
from right about here.
But Aldridge has a new buddy and said new buddy
has already delivered in the clutch.
Aldridge's mighty game one performance
almost went for naught when he fouled out
with a minute to go in overtime.
But Lillard fought off Patrick Beverley's great defense
for an and one to take the lead, then buried two more
steely ones to give Portland the edge in the final seconds.
Lillard has averaged over 25 points per game
in his first playoff series, including noble efforts
when Aldridge faltered in the two losses.
Damian Lillard is scary, which makes this interesting.
On take two of this final play,
Parsons started guarding Mo Williams,
but it appears Harden recommended a switch
between Parsons and Beverley,
Houston's best backcourt defender.
Parsons was the hero on offense,
Now he's assumed the task of catching a man
who just morphed into a blur.
If he and the Rockets can get a stop,
they draw this super close series, even closer.
Adding another game seven to this weekend,
they'll play at home for a chance
to complete a rare three-game comeback.
They'll owe a lot of that comeback to Dwight Howard,
James Harden's new co-star who's kept this team alive
during some barren stretches from their top scorer.
Howard has taken over guarding the top Portland scorer,
but Aldridge too has a relatively new co-star,
and that once obscure prospect
is now speeding around screens for one shot at glory,
one shot to end a playoff drought
unbecoming of a once great franchise.
Let's see what happens.
Welcome to a moment in history.
- [Commentator] ...and three wins the series.
It's Lillard, he got the shot off!
Good! Good!
(crowd screaming raucously)
And the Blazers win the series
for the first time in 14 years!
(crowd cheering deliriously)