Blazers believe past postseason failures have helped them vs. Thunder

The Portland Trail Blazers moved within one win of the Western Conference semifinals after defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder 111-98 in Game 4 of their first-round series Sunday evening.

While the Blazers' past postseason struggles - including back-to-back first-round sweeps the last two years - have been well-documented, guard CJ McCollum believes they've helped the club lock in on the task at hand against the Thunder.

"We're a lot more mature than we were in past years," McCollum said, according to ESPN's Royce Young. "We can handle adversity. We understood what we wanted to accomplish tonight and we didn't want anything to get in the way. Multiple times we had discussions about not saying anything to anyone. If they don't have a black-and-gray jersey on, don't talk to him. Talk to our team. Don't talk to the refs, don't talk to the other team. Execute our game plan and let's get out of here with the win."

The Trail Blazers entered their series with the Thunder having lost 10 straight playoff games, three away from the NBA record currently held by the Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks.

Portland has advanced to the second round just twice in the Damian Lillard era, but the All-Star guard isn't dwelling on the team's previous failures.

"We don't focus on doubters, we focus on ourselves," Lillard said. "We accept the responsibility of our past two playoff performances and we moved on. I think that's one of the biggest and one of the best things that we did for ourselves, was not hold on to it. We moved on and we're having a better run now. We just got to finish it."

The Trail Blazers head back home with a 3-1 series lead and can eliminate the Thunder with a win Tuesday at the Moda Center.