BROOKLYN -- As the Portland Trail Blazers were walking to the locker room Friday at Barclays Center, after escaping with a much-needed 127-125 victory over the Brooklyn Nets, Damian Lillard stopped Jusuf Nurkic short of the locker room door for a little reality check.

Nurkic was bemoaning his miscues, which included a key late-game brick at the free throw line that nearly cost the Blazers, and Lillard had heard enough.

"I stopped him in the hallway," Lillard said. "I said, 'I don't care about none of that. The most important thing is, you made the biggest play of the game.'"

Lillard was referring to a game-changing steal and three-point play in the closing seconds that transformed a tie game into a three-point Portland lead, putting an exclamation point on Nurkic's best game of the season.

With 30.6 seconds left, DeMarre Carroll blocked a Nurkic reverse layup attempt and Caris LeVert corralled the rebound under the basket. But before LeVert could kick the ball ahead to a guard, Nurkic snatched it from his arms along the baseline and flipped up a layup as Spender Dinwiddie hacked him. The ball dropped through the net, Nurkic pumped his fist, chest-bumped Lillard and high-fived CJ McCollum, as the Blazers' bench went nuts.

After Nurkic converted the free throw, the Blazers led 126-123 with 27.6 seconds left, which proved to be just enough to eke out a win amid a wild finish.

"It was good to see that type of passion and energy," Lillard said. "We could have easily been up against it. He got his hand on the ball, caught it, went up strong and finished it. And-one. That was the play of the game. And that's just him making a winning play and staying with it. When you do things like that, you give yourself a chance."

In fitting fashion for a team that seems to make everything hard, the final seconds were filled with drama. The Blazers had to withstand a Dinwiddie layup, two Nets misses and three botched free throws in the final 11.4 seconds -- one from McCollum and two from Nurkic -- to escape with a win. But after enduring a 20-point smack down at Philadelphia on Wednesday, nobody in the visiting locker room at Barclays Center was complaining. Especially Nurkic, who finished with 29 points, 15 rebounds, four blocks -- and one memorable steal.

"I learn never quit," Nurkic said of his important three-point play. "There's no lost possession until it's done, so if we have time to fight, we're going to fight. I see an opportunity to steal the ball and make a play, and it (went) in."

Lillard was dominant from beginning to end, recording 34 points, nine assists and three rebounds, McCollum scored 11 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter, and coach Terry Stotts added a little intrigue, starting Pat Connaughton in place of Moe Harkless at small forward. But it was the play of Nurkic, particularly down the stretch, that made the difference as the Blazers (11-8) slogged through a noon game the day after spending Thanksgiving on the road.

Nurkic, who has been maddeningly inconsistent over the first 19 games, recorded season highs in scoring and rebounding, tied his season-high in blocks and had his second-best shooting performance of the season, making 12 of 19 field goals (63.2 percent). The game-saving three-point play was only part of a clutch finish in which Nurkic registered four points, two rebounds, two blocks and that big steal over the final two minutes of the game, personally stopping three separate Nets possessions when it mattered most.

It was a bit of poetic justice as only two weeks earlier, Nurkic played just 53 seconds in the fourth quarter of a frustrating 101-97 loss to the Nets at the Moda Center.

"That's who I am," Nurkic said. "I need to be like this every night. This consistency we're talking about whole year, last year, too ... this team need me and I need to be better."

Joe Freeman | jfreeman@oregonian.com | 503-294-5183 | @BlazerFreeman