‘Are y’all serious?’: Trailblazers star guard Damian Lillard reveals he got called for a post-game drug test for the FIRST TIME in his 11-year NBA career – after dropping an insane, best-ever 71 points against the Rockets
Damian Lillard has revealed that he had to go through his first post-game drug test ever in his 11 years in the NBA after dropping 71 points in a 131-114 win over the Houston Rockets on Sunday night.Â
The 32-year-old, seven-time All-Star was in dismay after becoming the first player in league history to score more than 70 points in under 40 minutes.Â
He also tied with Donovan Mitchell, Elgin Baylor (1960) and David Robinson (1994) for most points scored in a game, becoming the eighth player in NBA history to score 70 or more.
‘Honestly, I was like are y’all serious,’ Lillard told reporters postgame on Sunday. ‘I did the urine test [Saturday] and they backed it up with the blood draw after the game [Sunday]. That was the first time in my career [getting] tested after a game.
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‘Then aside from that they know I am scared of needles. I know I got a lot of tattoos, but when you’re doing a blood draw it is different than tattoos. It brought me down from here to the floor, all the way until it was done.
 ‘Once they finished it I was like, ”alright, I got that out of the way.”’
Damian Lillard submitted his first NBA drug test in 11 years after a 71-point show on Sunday
The 32-year-old broke Portland’s franchise record & his own career-high against the RocketsÂ
Lillard hardly put a foot wrong against Houston, shooting 57.9 percent from the field (22-of-38 shots overall) and 59.1 percent from three-point range (13-of-22). He also had six rebounds and six assists in 39 minutes of game action.Â
And while beating the team with the worst record in the league (13-47), this year’s NBA three-point contest champion broke his own franchise tally, which previously stood at 61 points.Â
Lillard’s latest performance was his 15th career game with 50 or more points, the sixth-most in NBA history. He had 41 points and eight three-pointers by halftime.Â
It was a career-high in a half for Portland’s star guard and the most points in a half for any player in the league this season. He had 50 by the start of the fourth quarter.Â
In the game’s final minutes, the crowd at Moda Center was on its feet, phones recording the moment while chanting ‘MVP! MVP!’
‘I think any hooper enjoys those moments when you’re hot, you’re in attack mode, you’re feeling good,’ Lillard said. ‘But it’s the stuff afterward that I struggle with, like when I walked off the court, was I supposed to be overly excited, or what?’Â
‘It really, really was a masterful performance,’ Blazers coach Chauncey Billups said. ‘It was a piece of art. That was incredible.’
Lillard’s 13 three-pointers were one short of the NBA record set by Golden State’s Klay Thompson in 2018.Â
Lillard hardly put a foot wrong against Houston and shot 57.9 percent overall from the field
‘It really, really was a masterful performance,’ coach and ex-All-Star Chauncey Billups said
Since then, Thompson’s Warriors teammate Stephen Curry and the Chicago Bulls’ Zach LaVine also made 13 threes.Â
Lillard’s magical performance on Sunday helped the Blazers get closer to .500, as the team sits with a 29-31 overall record in a tightly packed Western Conference.Â
There’s only a four-game differential sitting in between the fourth-seeded Phoenix Suns and the Oklahoma City Thunder – the 13th seed in the conference.Â
Portland is the West’s 11th seed, lurking right outside the league’s play-in spots.Â
