DALLAS -- As the American Airlines Center crowd wildly celebrated the legend’s vintage moment, C.J. McCollum had a simple thought: 3.9 seconds is plenty of time.
Dirk Nowitzki, one of the league’s great closers of the past generation, gave the Dallas Mavericks a one-point lead with less than four ticks on the clock by drilling his second go-ahead 3-pointer of the final minute. The Portland Trail Blazers responded by giving McCollum a chance to be the hero in the final seconds for the first time in his career.
McCollum delivered, just as he’d done on Portland’s previous two possessions. The midrange floater after splitting Wesley Matthews and Harrison Barnes was McCollum's first career game winner in the final five seconds, but it’s a safe bet that it won’t be the last.
“I think he has a lot of confidence in his ability to get a look, and he’s not afraid of the moment, whether it’s midrange or floater or open shots,” Blazers coach Terry Stotts said after Portland pulled off a 114-113 victory Tuesday in a game that could have implications in the fight for the West’s final playoff spot. “He did it [in college] at Lehigh, and I think that’s kind of been his mentality coming into the league. Now he’s getting a chance to do it.”
On the Blazers, those chances usually go to point guard Damian Lillard, and he was certainly an option on a night when he scored 29 points and got a little payback after being lit up by Yogi Ferrell, the Mavs’ sudden rookie sensation, on national television last week. Lillard got the last shot against the Mavs earlier this season, but Matthews’ stifling defense forced him to settle for a desperation heave at the buzzer in a home loss.
McCollum, who has emerged as a heckuva high-scoring sidekick for Lillard the past two seasons, was clearly the Blazers’ hottest hand down the stretch. He had 14 of his game-high 32 points in the fourth quarter, including his three go-ahead buckets in the final 35 seconds.
The first came at the expense of Ferrell, who fell on his butt and slid backward as McCollum stopped on a dime and pulled up for the 11-footer. It was Devin Harris’ turn the next trip, and McCollum blew by the veteran guard for an and-1 lefty layup.
“I figured he was coming,” McCollum said of Matthews, his former teammate and the Mavs’ defensive stopper. “I figured he was going to tell his coach that he wanted to check me.”
McCollum figured right, and he welcomed the challenge: “Once they threw it to me, I knew it was time to go to work.”
Matthews had help from Barnes, but it didn’t matter. McCollum split them, took a couple of dribbles and put up a soft floater from just inside the free throw line.
Check out the team site for more game coverage
Check out the team site for more game coverage
It was the kind of opportunity Nowitzki has seized so many times throughout his 19-year career, most memorably on the Finals stage during Dallas’ title run. It was the kind of moment that McCollum, a four-year veteran in his second season as a starter, has been waiting for.
He has excelled in clutch situations -- during the fourth quarter or overtime, with less than five minutes remaining and neither team ahead by more than five points -- this season, scoring 121 points in 136 minutes while shooting 58.1 percent from the floor, per NBA.com stats.
“The best players enjoy having the ball,” McCollum said. “They enjoy rising to the occasion. You’ve got to be OK with missing. You’ve got to be OK with failing sometimes. I think that’s what makes players the best.”
That shot bumped the Blazers to one game behind the Denver Nuggets for the West’s final playoff spot. It was a gut punch to the Mavs, who had dug out of the hole created by their 2-13 start enough to make a postseason berth a realistic possibility and capped a 9-3 stretch with last Friday’s win in Portland. But they followed that with a dud in Denver and this last-second loss to Portland, which put them three-and-a-half games behind the Nuggets and two-and-a-half back of the Blazers.
“It’s tough,” said Nowitzki, who had 11 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter. “Saying all that, it was a fun game to be a part of.”
Nowitzki can certainly appreciate the thrill and beauty of clutch shot-making. So can McCollum, who has witnessed the NBA's No. 6 all time scorer’s late-game mastery from the couch many times.
“Dirk’s a legend, man,” McCollum said. “He’s a guy I’ve watched for a long time. … He’s a great player. He’s been great for the game. I’m just thankful I got to compete against him.”
The Blazers are thankful that McCollum -- not Nowitzki -- got the last shot in a spectacularly entertaining game.
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