PHOENIX — Damian Lillard made his way slowly to the Milwaukee Bucks team buses shortly after he missed his third straight game with a strained right calf, and the all-star point guard didn’t have much news when it came to the severity of his injury.
“It’s been frustrating just obviously not being able to play this point in the season, but just trying to learn more,” he said.
The 34-year-old has been a quick scratch the last couple of games. He was initially questionable for the game in Los Angeles with calf soreness, and then he was quickly ruled for the game in Sacramento when the injury was updated to say the soleus muscle in his right calf was sore. He was then quickly ruled out for Monday’s game in Phoenix as the team listed it as a calf strain.
“Just the normal soreness,” he said. “I’m not sure how much I could actually be doing about it, so it’s still at that stage.”
Bucks head coach Doc Rivers has said Lillard has gotten imaging a couple times on his calf, but when asked if there was a tear in the muscle Rivers said, “I don’t yet. We’ll know more.”
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Lillard echoed that.
“I don’t,” he said when asked if he knew anything yet off of those images. “Not enough. Not enough for me to speak.”
That said, the Bucks are still considering Lillard day-to-day, even though Rivers acknowledged before the game there hasn’t been progress.
“No, obviously ’cause he’s not playing,” the coach said. “So, we’re just going to keep monitoring it and hopefully we’ll get more information about it (Monday). I know he saw some people so we’re checking everything out.”
Lillard missed three games over 10 days in December with a strain in his right calf. That stretch coincided with a respiratory illness that sidelined him for a game. He strained his right Achilles tendon just before the playoffs began last season and played through it before aggravating the injury in Game 3 against Indiana, which forced him to miss Games 4 and 5. He returned for Game 6 was but was clearly compromised.
When asked if there is enough time before the playoffs begin on April 19 to get healthy, Lillard said: “I mean, the only thing I can say is when we do get to that point (the playoffs), regardless, I want to go into healthy. So it’s just wanting to be healthy No. 1 and that’s pretty much it.”
Lillard suffered two strains to that calf (including the soleus muscle, specifically) early in the 2022 season while he was with Portland, which forced him to miss a total of 10 games over a total of three weeks.
