The Milwaukee Bucks will not have Damian Lillard again for Recreation 1 of their first-round collection, however he is been cleared to return. That places quite a lot of stress on the Indiana Pacers early.
Lillard hasn’t performed since March 18, when he was identified with deep vein thrombosis and began taking blood-thinning medicine. Now Lillard is off the blood thinners and making ready to return for the playoffs.
That is nice information for Lillard and dangerous information for the Indiana Pacers, who host the primary two video games of the collection Saturday and Tuesday. These is perhaps the one video games the place they will keep away from Lillard, who has eight days to ramp up his conditioning earlier than the collection returns to Milwaukee April 25.
Final season, it took the Pacers six video games to dispatch the Bucks within the first spherical, though Lillard missed two video games and two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo did not play in any respect. If the Bucks can steal a sport in Indianapolis with Ryan Rollins and Kevin Porter Jr. filling in, the Pacers must win at the least one sport in Milwaukee in opposition to a strengthened Bucks crew.
Rollins and Porter have not been dangerous with Lillard out. Mixed, they’re taking pictures over 50 % and averaging 25.1 factors during the last 14 video games that Lillard had missed, together with 8.6 assists in opposition to three turnovers. That is not so good as Lillard, but it surely’s competent level guard play.
It is uncommon for the Bucks to be a playoff underdog in a playoff collection in the course of the Antetokounmpo period, as they’re this yr. Which means the stress is on the Pacers, and that may solely ramp up the longer the collection goes.
