The Blazers face a tough challenge against The Joker and his Nuggets, will Damian Lillard play in Portland’s first back-to-back game of the season?
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After a significantly long break from basketball for the first time since getting drafted back in 2012 as the 6th overall pick, Damian Lillard, isn’t rusty at all to start his 2022-23 campaign.
Following a comparatively quieter opening day game where he scored just 20 against the Sacramento Kings, he showed up big time against two of the “contenders” of the Western Conference – the Phoenix Suns and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Both those matches were close encounters and Blazers needed every bit of the 82 points he scored in the two games combined. The 6x All-Star put up similar numbers in both games scoring 41 points in each while testing his clutch gene in both games.
Also read: Is Jimmy Butler Playing Tonight vs Raptors? Miami Heat Release Injury Report on 6x All-Star
Now that his team is standing at 3-0 and is about to play its first back-to-back game, will Dame Dolla show up or will he sit this out?
Damian Lillard will play against Nikola Jokic and Co
Dame time showed up in the clutch moments of the last two games, he might not get the opportunity to do so if The Joker gets his massive game scoring-wise, which is still pending since their 2-1 start to the season.
The two teams might also be each other in the Postseason, so none of the superstars can miss this game which they could use to know the opposition better.
As Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. are also back in Denver’s line-up Lillard wouldn’t risk missing this game and disrupting his team’s winning start to the campaign.
His minutes might be limited, but he will play the Monday night encounter in Moda Center, at 10:00 PM EDT. There are no changes to both the teams’ injury lists from the last game.
What will be different for Lillard this season?
Dame Dolla never failed to lead his team to the Playoffs barring his first and the last season, the latter was consumed by injury.
However, his team never made a significant impact in those 8-years, failing to even make a single conference finals appearance.
But this time it could be different from any of those. As this Blazers team looks to be the strongest the Dame has ever had.
Both offensive and defensive reinforcements this year as Josh Hart, Jerami Grant, and Gary Payton II, will help him get to the place where he should have reached multiple times already.
He might be targeting the ultimate reward this season, but let us hope we see him and his team at least in the Western Conference Finals this season.
