When a player can literally skip into a game, they’ve got enough energy to bring life back to a team that was playing in quadruple overtime.
Rodney Hood was skipping into the fourth and final overtime period on Friday night.
He had a bounce... a bounce that the Blazers desperately needed.
Hood’s fresh legs, along with his confidence and the trust from his teammates helped the Trail Blazers secure a quadruple overtime game with a 140-137 victory over the Denver Nuggets.
With the physically taxing and emotionally draining win, the Blazers now take a 2-1 series lead and Hood should take home the game ball.
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With 1:59 remaining in the fourth overtime, Hood subbed in for Maurice Harkless, who started cramping up after playing 45 minutes. Not to mention Harkless was initially listed as questionable with a right ankle sprain for Game 3.
Blazers head coach Terry Stotts admitted though that he wasn’t planning on taking out the starting small forward.
“I’d like to take credit for that, but actually Moe was cramping up a little bit, so that was the reason for the substitution, but we did go to [Hood] a couple times. Obviously, the three-point shot was a scramble situation. CJ had a great play, but we did go to [Hood] because we liked the matchup a couple times and he had fresh legs,” Stotts said.
Hood scored seven of the Blazers final nine points.
The 26-year-old knew he would step up before even stepping foot off the bench in the final OT.
“I just felt pretty good, you know I was telling Gary Trent and Ant (Anfernee Simons) that if I got a chance, I was going to end it.” Hood said.
Hood’s third consecutive shot, a three-pointer, at the 1:07 mark of the final OT was one of the biggest shots in Hood’s basketball career.
RODN3Y HOOD 👌🏽 #RipCity pic.twitter.com/GPtS8HdVK5
— NBC Sports Northwest (@NBCSNorthwest) May 4, 2019
“It’s up there,” Hood said when thinking about ranking the clutch three-pointer. “It’s one of the biggest moments, and obviously it’s the playoffs – I’ve hit game-winners and big shots before, but this one means a lot, especially going back into the game after being out for a while.”
CJ McCollum, who lead the Blazers with 41 points in the win, missed a 17-foot step back jumper with 23.1 seconds to go in the fourth OT, but McCollum followed his shot and came up with the offensive rebound and then found Hood.
“I seen him out of the corner of my eye when I rose and I was like ‘ok if I do miss this, it’s probably gonna come back to me,’ so I followed and I jumped, and right when I jumped I was like ‘uh, oh,’” McCollum said. “And I got excited and tried to throw it as fast as possible and when he pump faked it I was like ‘uh, oh’ and again, he side stepped it and cashed out. And I was like ‘big big shot Rodney, we needed that.’”
“Rodney’s been great for us. He stepped up… we’ve seen the work ethic, and now he’s putting it all on display for you guys and getting some big baskets for us,” McCollum added.
Hood finished with 19 points in the Game 3 win. He’s averaging 17 points through the first three games of the series.
It was another tough shooting night for Damian Lillard. Lillard went 10-of-24 from the field, including 2-of-9 from three. He finished with 28 points.
Lillard was not surprised that Hood came up big when the Blazers needed him most.
“I think in this series, every game he’s come in and given us a huge lift,” Lillard said. “I thought tonight was fitting that he was able to come through big for us and it was at a big time in the game. At one point, we were down two, coach called a play for him and he scored it and then next time, I was like, ‘same play’ and he looked at me like ‘what are we doing?’ and I was like, ‘same thing lets keep it rolling.’ And he hit another one.”
The Blazers had 23 assists on the night and Lillard knows that the success they’ve been having has been all about trust.
“I think what he did for our team tonight was huge. Same thing in Game Two, but I think us trusting him and continuing to play through him in big moments, it made him feel that much better about the three-pointer he shot. He rose up with confidence and hit a big shot, so it’s been great to see him coming up for the team, especially tonight,” Lillard said.
Hood echoed those sentiments about trusting one another.
“I got my first bucket to go down, and coach kept going to me, and then CJ is a hell of a player getting rebounds, so I think that’s a big thing that we talk about, is just trusting each other,” Hood said.
Skipping and swishing those are two words to describe Rodney Hood’s late game heroics.
Blazers fans are now skipping all around Rip City.
https://www.nbcsports.com/northwest/portland-trail-blazers/rodney-hood-called-game-bench-then-delivered
2019-05-04 07:58:09Z
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