In three days I would be wearing his jersey as his team played the Cleveland Cavaliers. Right now though, I was standing outside his locker with a throng of reporters.
Damian Lillard, the all-star point guard for the Portland Trail Blazers, was in the middle of answering some question about facing the Cavs and LeBron James later in the week.
I knew my window to ask a question was closing. A majority of the reporters already asked their question.
“Make a move, Nolin,” I told myself.
I had crafted my question over 20 minutes ago, soon after the Blazers won their 10th game in a row, a 115-99 victory over the Heat. Lillard had just scored 32 points made big shots to get the win, but I figured most people would ask him about that. Plus, in the last month, scoring over 30 had become somewhat commonplace for this 27-year-old millionaire.
I took a different angle: “Goran is a very creative player like you, what do you respect about his game?”
I was referring to the Heat all-star point guard Goran Dragic, who played well in the loss.
“LeBron?” Lillard clarified.
“Goran,” I said back, a bit panicked that my question didn’t quite land.
“I respect the fact that he just plays the game. He’s not out there saying too much or being extra — he gets to his spots and takes his shots,” Lillard said.
A weight was instantly lifted off my shoulders. I was worried I’d turn mute the minute I stepped inside the locker room.
Then again, I’d just finished interviewing a bevy of coaches and players at the Region V basketball tournament in Ketchikan. After wrapping up my time there on a Sunday, I continued south to the Rose City, Oregon, my birthplace, for a five-day getaway to see my younger brother, college buddy and the Blazers.
It was just my luck the Blazers were home against both the Heat and Cavs that week. As I was planning the trip, I requested a media pass for either of the games. I sent them some links to my stories and pitched the idea of writing a column about covering “the Bigs.”
Fast forward three months, and there I was, on a Monday afternoon, picking up a press pass from someone in a red polo shirt three hours before game time.
To my disappointment, the press pass was not laminated or attached to a cool lanyard. Instead, the piece of black cardstock that contained my name printed out on a sticker looked like something I might rip off a piece of merchandise from the Blazers store.
Still, it was that piece of paper that afforded me a 30-page packet of game notes, a spot in section 207 and access to the postgame press conference with the head coach and the locker room.
Here are a few takeaways from the experience:
The media world is smaller than you might think.
As I finished my mock game story, I introduced myself to another reporter that looked to be around my age.
We stepped outside the media workroom and started conversing in the space used earlier for the press conference. Over complimentary draft beers, my new media friend from the Oregonian newspaper Joe Freeman and I spoke about Alaska.
It turns Freeman, who’s been on the Blazers’ beat since 2007, graduated from East Anchorage High School and went to the same college my brother attends, the University of Portland.
Even NBA writers make mistakes.
Later that night, I logged on to the Miami Herald to see the work of another journalist I brushed shoulders with after the game. The writer accidentally wrote the Blazers were the “winners of 19 consecutive games” instead of nine consecutive games. Covering an 82-game season can’t be easy for anyone, even the pros.
Wait until a player is mostly clothed to start interviewing them.
After I walked into the Blazers locker room, I noticed something strange. No one was talking to anyone else. I asked the person next to me what the hold up was. The stranger (who later turned out to be Freeman) politely informed me they give the players the courtesy of getting mostly dressed before launching into an interview. Within five minutes though, all 15 or so of the media flocked to the locker of the “Bosnian Beast” Jusuf Nurkic and asked about his 27-point night.
Find my story on the game below, which I wrote as if I were actually covering the team.
Trail Blazers with 10th straight with Lillard’s threes
March 12, 2018
Damian Lillard made five 3-pointers when the Miami Heat capped an 18-2 run midway through the fourth quarter Monday night at the Moda Center.
Good thing he was still good for two more 3-pointers, or else the Portland Trail Blazers might not be the owners of a 10-game win streak.
Yes, the Blazers have not lost since the middle of last month after a 115-99 win over Miami, but it took two late shots by Lillard (32 points) to do it.
The MVP candidate’s sixth 3-pointer made it 96-90 just inside the six-minute mark of the fourth and his seventh and final one came some two minutes later to make to put Portland up nine.
“They’re a playoff team so they’re going to keep making a run for it and they and they got some shots to fall, we turned the ball over a few times and allowed them to get out and get some easy ones,” Lillard said. “We had to regroup.”
Jusuf Nurkic recorded 27 points and 16 rebounds and three blocks, CJ McCollum had 17 points and Evan Turner had 13 points.
Goran Dragic led the Heat with 23 points while Tyler Johnson chipped in 17.
“He’s in attack mode,” Lillard said of Dragic. “I respect the fact that he just plays the game, he’s not out there saying too much.”
The Blazers outscored the Heat 34-25 in the first quarter when seven different players scored and the Blazers shot better than 52 percent from the field.
The Heat trailed by double-digits for much of the second and third quarter.
With a 16-point lead at the beginning of the fourth, it looked like Portland would cruise to victory.
But the Blazers committed four quick turnovers that the Heat turned into eight points to help them get back in the game.
The Blazers look to get their 11th straight on Thursday at the Moda Center against the Cavs.
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com. Follow Empire Sports on Twitter at @akempiresports. The author writes “From the Sidelines” every few months.
