Time’s up for Damian Lillard

After a 119-102 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers, the New Orleans Pelicans have taken a 3-0 lead in their series, with an opportunity to sweep the No. 3 seed on Saturday on their home court. There has been a lot of praise directed towards the Pelicans, especially Jrue Holiday, who has been one of the most impressive two-way players in the playoffs. However, there needs to be some blame directed at Damian Lillard, the Blazers franchise guard.

Lillard’s play this season helped him earn an All-Star nod, and his play in the second half of the season merited consideration for an All-NBA team selection.

“I should be first team All-NBA,” he said in an interview with SBNation earlier in April. “That’s how I feel. But I also feel like, this is how it’s going to be.”

While his stats are impressive — nearly 27 points a game, 6.6 assists a game, and just 2.8 turnovers a game — it’s his improvement on the defensive end that has elevated him to the next level. Lillard hasn’t been as much of a liability this season, and teams aren’t targeting him on that end as much.

But in three games versus the Pelicans in the playoffs, Lillard has struggled mightily. While the matchup against New Orleans is a difficult one — Rondo and Holiday offer a nasty combination of length and strength, with an otherworldly defender in Anthony Davis backing them up — this is the kind of situation where Portland needs Lillard to lead his team.

Here are his stats from the regular season compared to his stats from the postseason.

His inability to get open shots against the Pelicans guards has crippled the Trail Blazers offense. He’s shooting just 32 percent from the field, and struggling to knock down his 3-pointers too.

A lot of Lillard’s struggles can be attributed to Jrue Holiday’s defense, which has been outstanding all season and has continued into the playoffs. He’s had 15 turnovers in his last two games, and plenty of them are ones that he should be able to avoid with the amount of time he’s been in the league. Several of his turnovers are the result of bad decisions — dribbling into charges, passing the ball out of bounds, and making poor passes to teammates in the pick and roll.

For example, the turnover where Holiday was able to steal the ball at halfcourt — Lillard has been dribbling towards him, while Holiday sizes him up as he approaches. Holiday is 40 feet from the rim, with plenty of space for Lillard to make a smart play and dribble back towards the middle of the floor. But Lillard continues towards the sideline with dogged determination, while Holiday forces him to switch from his left hand back to his right, and the lazy, telegraphed crossover is easily stolen, with Holiday able to finish with ease in transition.

That’s the kind of play that crushes a team. The Trail Blazers were down by 19 points at halftime, on the road, against a team that had taken both games in Portland already. Portland had come out of the locker room and started with a small 5-0 run. Jusuf Nurkic, who had only scored two points in the first half, had finished off a pass from Lillard, and had grabbed an offensive board after a missed McCollum 3-pointer, finding Maurice Harkless for a 3-pointer from the top of the arc. The Pelicans called timeout, but E’Twaun Moore missed a runner that Nurkic rebounded. A made basket on that possession could have cut the Pelicans lead down to 11, and the Trail Blazers confidence could have begun to return after getting dominated in the first half. When Portland needed Lillard time to start 12 minutes earlier than usual, he made a bad decision, and New Orleans responded to Holiday’s defensive play by going on an 11-0 run.

New Orleans isn’t doing anything that Lillard hasn’t seen before — they’re sending traps when he runs a pick-and-roll near the sideline, and trusting their guards to contain him when he drives, forcing him into difficult shots over Davis or kicking the ball out to teammates. The difference is the personnel — Holiday, Rondo, and Davis are a hurdle that a lot of guards are going to struggle against.

Next: The Blazers have two problems on their hands and two answers in their pocket

New Orleans has given Al-Farouq Aminu all the liberty in the world on offense, content to let him catch the ball with nary a defender nearby. Portland hasn’t adapted to the New Orleans defensive schemes, at least not to a strategy that has worked. They only have one game left to figure something out, whether that’s running more plays where McCollum is the primary initiator with Lillard off-ball, perhaps looking for more offensive rebound opportunities. They could try running pick-and-rolls with Evan Turner as the ball-handler, with Lillard screening, putting wings like E’Twaun Moore, Solomon Hill, and Darius Miller into a situation where they have to make the right rotation.

While Davis will still lurk near the rim, McCollum and Turner are both proficient at scoring in the mid-range, which could start to pull Davis away from the rim, which is where he’s able to lurk, with Nurkic unable to pull Davis away from their on his own. If they don’t find something that works, they’re going to be able to enjoy their summer at lot earlier than they would like to.

No team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in the playoffs. For the Blazers to come out of the playoffs with even one victory, they’ll need Lillard to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk, and play like the All-NBA guard he believes he is.