What did Damian Lillard say about his drug test after 71-point performance?
It’s not every day that a player has a historic night, but Damian Lillard did and with that, he was drug tested. Standard protocol, or an insult to one of the league’s best?
To date, there has never been any doubt about how talented the Blazers’ point guard is, but his recent performance appears to have been “too good” leading to questions about whether he’s doing everything by the book. Needless to say, Portland’s star was not at all pleased.
Blazers’ Damian Lillard drugs tested after 71-point night
If you missed it, Damian Lillard posted one of the biggest points hauls this season on Sunday night, when he scored an eye-opening 71 points against the Houston Rockets. Yet, it would appear that Lillard’s performance didn’t just garner praise, but rather scrutiny, with the league requiring a blood-drawn drug test following the game. Indeed, Lillard was not at all pleased upon learning that he would be subjected to a post-game evaluation.
“I was like, ‘Are y’all serious?’” Lillard said. “I did the urine test yesterday, and then they backed it up with the blood-drawn tonight after the game - that’s actually my first time in my career being tested after a game.” Incidentally, Lillard also went on to disclose that he has a phobia of needles. “They know that I’m scared of needles. I know I got a lot of tattoos, but when you doing a blood draw it’s different than tattoos,” he said.
Ranking Damian Lillard’s 71-point performance
To be clear, Lillard put himself on the map with his performance against the Rockets. With his 71 points, Lillard is just the eighth player in NBA history to score, at least 70 points in a game. Incidentally, he’s the second player in the league to do so this season, following Cleveland Cavaliers star Donovan Mitchell who also scored 71 points in a game, against the Chicago Bulls back on January 2nd.
In terms of how it all went down, Lillard’s 71 points were the result of a night on which he shot 22-of-38 shooting, while sinking 13 of his 22 3-point attempts. To add to that, the prolific point guard also nailed all 14 shots from the free throw line. In case you’re wondering about his tally from beyond the arc, his 13 3-pointers were just one short of the record held by Golden State Warriors sniper, Klay Thompson, who has the most scored in a single game. With that, Lillard is now tied with the aforementioned Mitchell, as well as Elgin Baylor (1960) and David Robinson (1994) for the eighth-most points scored in an NBA game. As for who has scored the most in a single game, that would be Wilt Chamberlain who scored 100 points back on March 2nd, 1962.