The rivalry between the two alpha’s, one from Portland Trail Blazers and the other from Houston Rockets, dates way back to last year. It was no surprise that the face-off between Damian Lillard and Russell Westbrook in the Orlando Bubble would be the same too. The Blazers beat the Rockets with a score of 110-102 and Damian Lillard had bagged 21 points for himself as well.

Ever since their first war of words, it has been a chain of trash-talking and intense one-on-one matchups.

The beef history

The first instance between the two happened in a game last year in January. Lillard had stepped to the free-throw line against the Thunder to which Westbrook made a snippy comment. He said, “I’ve been busting that ass for years.” This is where their rivalry stemmed from and continues to date.

However, the beef’s intensity increased in the second quarter of Game 2 during the 2019 playoffs. The Oklahoma City Thunder and Portland Trail Blazers were against each other. Damion Lillard was able to stop Westbrook from entering the paint and cornered him until Westbrook fell down on the court. It looked like a shove that got Westbrook on his back. From this incident, it was clear that the rivalry was not limited to verbal jabs but had turned physical too.

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The escalation of this fight could be seen in the match earlier this year. The Blazers were at a high risk of missing the playoffs which already added on a lot of pressure. On top of which were seen the non-stop snippy comments the both made against one another. Lillard had fouled Westbrook to which he said, “A foul is a bucket. You can’t guard me. Automatic two points.” Lillard responded,” “You a 60 percent free-throw shooter. You gonna miss both of them.” 

Westbrook did not stop there. He continued, “What seed you all? What playoff seed are you all?” and the last comment by Lillard was the end to the conversation. He threatened, “You know I’m the last person you want to see in the playoffs.”

Damian Lillard addresses the beef

Nevertheless, the rivalry between the two does not seem to be unhealthy to which Lillard just confirmed after posting about it on Twiter, He retweeted someone’s post that read,” For those who think these two brothers Damian Lillard and Russell Westbrook hate each other must be smoking the wrong pipe. I see competition with respect but yall wanna divide brothers so fast like its Hatred. Trippin” and tagged both the players. Damian Lillard captioned the retweet with the ‘100’ emoticon which showed his agreement to the statement.

SOURCE: Damian Lillard, Twitter