Trail Blazers need to get back to being themselves

11:20 PM ET

LOS ANGELES — Less than an hour after the final horn sounded in the Portland Trail Blazers’ 115-95 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 1, Damian Lillard climbed onto the bus and immediately called up his collection of plays he keeps in a notes file on his digital device.

“[The Clippers] trapped me even harder and are trying to take me out more than they do in the regular season,” Lillard said at Blazers practice on Tuesday. “At one point, I would’ve had to force up like a crazy, deep shot to get an attempt. I was trying. I was running fast. I was trying to turn the corner and it was like, ‘a defender is here; a defender is there.’ It was tough to get an attempt up.”

Lillard culled his notes for play sets that specifically placed him off the ball, which he feels is the best antidote to the Clippers’ stifling pressure that took him completely out of his game.

“I think that’s the adjustment you make,” Lillard said. “We’ve got a lot of sets where I can still handle the ball but I can get rid of it and be the guy coming off screens and flares and pindown and stuff like that. Obviously, that’s what we’ll have to get to because they’re not going to let me be myself in pick-and-rolls at the level that I would like to.”

Damian Lillard was harassed by a stingy Clippers defense in Portland’s Game 1 loss. Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

This has been the primary theme around the Trail …

continue reading in source espn.go.com