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