After enjoying a terrific regular season and finishing as the third seed in the Western Conference, the Portland Trail Blazers have become the first team to be dumped out of the playoffs.

The New Orleans Pelicans completed a series sweep over the Blazers on Sunday night with a thrilling 131-123 win to clinch it.

Damian Lillard came into the first round matchup as one of the hottest players in the NBA after enjoying a terrific 82-game campaign.

But the point guard failed to replicate that form in this series and was cold in all four games.

In Sunday's elimination game, the All-Star failed to make an impact when the Blazers needed him most and was held to 19 points on 1-of-5 shooting from beyond the arc.

For the final two-and-a-half months of the regular season, the 27-year-old averaged 30.5 points per game and was a menace offensively.

In the four clashes with the Pelicans, however, he shot just 35.2 percent from the floor and 30 percent from deep.

"It's a disappointing end for us," Lillard said after the game, per ESPN. "It's not how we envisioned it happening for us, especially getting home court.

"We just weren't playing our best basketball like we had been during that stretch of 13 games. And then we come in here against a team that probably played their best stretch of basketball when they had to."

New Orleans guard Jrue Holiday took on the task of defending Lillard and made life extremely tough for him.

Holiday also outplayed the Portland star offensively and capped it with a 41-point performance last night.

Dame praised the Pelicans for their defensive gameplan and admitted it's not something he's been used to.

"They came in with a great defensive game plan," Lillard said. "Threw something at us that we hadn't seen and it worked out for them."

There will definitely be a post-mortem for the Trail Blazers after this unexpected collapse and it'll be interesting to see what changes will be made moving forward.

Head coach Terry Stotts' position will come under threat after a second straight sweep in the playoffs in two years.

After a 49-33 campaign, not many saw a first-round exit in this manner coming for the Oregon-based outfit.

They also have one of the biggest payrolls in the league and very little cap space to work with heading into the summer.

That will inevitably lead to questions about whether they'll potentially look to break up their backcourt duo of Lillard and C.J. McCollum and trade one of them for more pieces.

These decisions will lie with general manager Neil Olshey and the Blazers front office but it's clear that this will be a big offseason for them in regards to the team's future.

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