Hubie Brown had experienced moments like this at FedExForum more than once.
Yet even now, he was still incredibly tense.
Behind him, countless fans were just like him, staring without blinking.
Because the two men visiting FedExForum today had extraordinarily high success rates in clutch shots!
At this moment, the Grizzlies in white home uniforms were facing the Portland Trail Blazers in black. This was the Grizzlies' second straight home game after facing the Clippers two days earlier.
With only 31 seconds left in the game, the two sides were tied at 101.
Last summer, the Trail Blazers had practically undergone a complete rebuild. Four of their five starting players had left all at once!
Other than the youngest one, Damian Lillard, the Trail Blazers had failed to keep a single one of them.
People had thought that after their starting five went their separate ways, the Trail Blazers would collapse. Yet last season, led by Lillard, they posted a 44-38 record and successfully made the playoffs!
And in the playoffs, the Trail Blazers performed quite well too, only falling in the second round after running into the "Galactic Battleship" Warriors.
The Trail Blazers had remained strong amid the crowded field of Western Conference contenders not only because Lillard was having the best season of his career, but also because the rise of C.J. McCollum, the tenth overall pick in 2013, had caught most people by surprise.
Last season, McCollum averaged 20.8 points per game and shot an impressive 41.7% from three-point range!
Before that, McCollum had not even averaged ten points per game!
The emergence of Portland's two-gun backcourt had allowed the Trail Blazers to maintain a place among the Western Conference's top eight.
And the pair shared one trait: they never went soft in the clutch!
In the