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Damian Lillard injury: Bucks get star guard back Friday vs. Raptors after horrendous back-to-back

Milwaukee is No. 2 in the East with a two-game cushion in the loss column, but it has been shaky lately


  • Apr 05 2024
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 Damian Lillard injury: Bucks get star guard back Friday vs. Raptors after horrendous back-to-back
Damian Lillard injury: Bucks get star guard back Friday vs. Raptors after horrendous back-to-back
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The Milwaukee Bucks are coming off a pair of horrendous losses, but at least they're getting Damian Lillard back in the lineup. The star guard has missed the past three games -- a 122-133 win in Atlanta, followed by a 117-113 loss in Washington and a 111-101 loss against Memphis at home -- because of a groin strain, and, with the postseason only a week and a half away, the second-place Bucks have only a two-game cushion in the loss column.

Lillard is available to play on Friday against the Toronto Raptors, according to 2:30 p.m. ET injury report.

Milwaukee has six games remaining on its regular-season schedule: vs. Toronto, vs. New York, vs. Boston, vs. Orlando, at Oklahoma City, at Orlando. Friday's game is the Bucks' last "easy" win -- the severely shorthanded Raptors have lost 15 straight games, including Wednesday's 133-85 bloodbath in Minnesota, the most lopsided loss in franchise history -- but, given that what just happened against the undermanned Wizards and even more undermanned Grizzlies, it's dangerous to assume that any win will come easily right now.

At 47-29, Milwaukee still has a 61% chance of finishing the regular season No. 2 in the Eastern Conference, according to playoffstatus.com. If it doesn't get its act together soon, though, those odds could drop. The Cavaliers (46-31), Magic (45-31) and Knicks (45-31) are all two games behind the Bucks in the loss column.

Beyond the implications for playoff positioning, the stretch run is significant for Milwaukee because it would like to establish some kind of positive momentum. It has lost four of its past five games and has gone 6-8 in its last 14, but its numbers with its best players on the court suggest that it still has a high ceiling. The Bucks have outscored opponents by 14.9 points per 100 possessions in 594 minutes with their starting lineup of Lillard, Malik Beasley, Khris Middleton, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez on the floor. That group has been elite at both ends, and the trio of Lillard, Middleton and Antetokounmpo has been dominant (+17 net rating in 731 minutes) regardless of who else has been on the court

Against Memphis, Milwaukee was not only without Lillard, but without Middleton, who was resting his left ankle on the second night of a back-to-back, and without Patrick Beverley, who was nursing a sprained right ankle. After the defeat, coach Doc Rivers told reporters he wished he'd have taken Antetokounmpo out of the game. "I just didn't like the way he was moving," Rivers said, but Antetokounmpo and the Bucks' medical staff said he was fine. Antetokounmpo is listed as doubtful against Toronto due to left hamstring tendinopathy, and Beverley is listed as doubtful, too.

Antetokounmpo told reporters on Wednesday he felt it was important for him to play through pain and adversity. He also said that Milwaukee had played with "too much randomness" on offense, and that it needed to improve its spacing and play with more purpose.

"I feel like sometimes two or three guys are on the same page, [and the] other two are not on the same page," Antetokounmpo said. "We have to get everybody on the same page. OK, Dame has the ball, what are we doing? Giannis is coming an setting one, he's rolling. Then after that, then Dame doesn't have nothing, what are we doing? We just going to stand around? No."

In Antetokounmpo's view, Milwaukee needs to "be more assertive when we are on offense, and we have to play with more aggressiveness and have more direction." He stressed that this was not a criticism of Rivers and that he thought the players needed to "know what we are trying to target." Naturally, this has been more challenging without Lillard.  "It's hard because we're used to him having the ball, him making the decisions, him coming off the pick-and-rolls," Antetokounmpo said, adding that his absence has put more playmaking pressure on everybody else.

If Antetokounmpo is right about needing to withstand adversity because it will help in the long run, then perhaps it's not such a bad thing that the Bucks don't have such a tight grip on the No. 2 spot. Perhaps it's good that they have a tough late-season schedule too. Generally speaking, though, every team would prefer to be as comfortable as the 60-16 Boston Celtics, so it could be conservative about injury maintenance without worrying about slipping in the standings.

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