By scoring 7 straight points in the final minute of the fourth overtime, Rodney Hood officially made himself the hero of this game. Lamian Illard and B.J. McSuckballsum, the Blazers supposed “stars”, were made to stand around and watch as Hood took over the game, declaring “I’m tired of watching you losers fail to put this game away. This ends NOW”. You know that clip of Vince Carter saying “it’s over, it’s over” after one of his dunk contest dunks? I swear I saw Hood doing that after his last bucket, except with more swear words being yelled. There are no replays of it, but I swear it happened. He also ran over to the Nuggets bench and started teabagging Michael Malone, and there aren’t replays of that either. Weird, but I guess the NBA wants to maintain its family-friendly image.
After barely doing anything in the series against the Thunder, a series where he scored 17 points over the 6 games, he’s really come alive against Denver. He’s playing only slightly more minutes, but he’s averaging 17 per game and is challenging Enes Kanter for the coveted “third option” role. Okay, maybe that’s not true, because if he was really challenging for that he would’ve gotten to play more than 3 minutes in all the overtimes combined. Man, typing that out makes Terry Stotts seem really stupid. Only 3 minutes? This game would’ve been over in the first overtime if they had had the sense to unleash him earlier.
As it stands, this is going to make a seriously great part of the upcoming Trailblazers championship DVD. This is the kind of performance that is meant to be retold in the form of epic narration and slow-mo clips. The kind of performance that gets retold over years and years, eventually growing into an unrecognizable behemoth where Hood scored 70 while Lillard cheered from the hospital where he was recovering from some tragic pre-game injury. ESPN, we’re going to need a 30 for 30 on this.