Bucks’ Damian Lillard plans to return from 4-game absence vs. Bulls after injury, illness

Following a four-game absence, Milwaukee Bucks All-Star guard Damian Lillard plans to return tonight on the road against the Chicago Bulls.

Lillard missed two games following a right calf strain that he sustained in the Bucks’ 97-81 NBA Cup Final win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, but as his right calf injury cleared up, the 13-year NBA veteran was forced to miss two more games with an illness.

Speaking publicly for the first time since his four-game absence following the Bucks’ shootaround in the United Center on Saturday, Lillard said this was not a situation where a star player was taking a night off and the illness was not an excuse.

“I f— wish it was that, I’ll tell you that,” Lillard said. “I was just telling (my teammates) earlier, like I’ve never been that sick before in my entire life.

“I wasn’t throwing up, nothing. I just didn’t eat for two days. I didn’t eat at all. I didn’t get up, nothing. I was down. It was bad.”

After dropping their first game after the NBA Cup in Cleveland without Lillard, the Bucks won two straight games without Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Antetokounmpo, Lillard’s running mate that forms the other half of the NBA’s top-scoring duo this season, missed two games with back spasms before missing the Bucks’ 111-105 loss to the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday with a non-Covid illness like Lillard.

Lillard hoped to play in Thursday’s game, but couldn’t make it through a workout confidently enough to get on the floor versus the Nets.

“A Couple days ago, I tried to work out — the night before the Brooklyn game — because I wanted to play against Brooklyn, and the whole time I was working out, it made me cough, coughing up sh—,” Lillard said. “I got through the workout, but I couldn’t breathe good. So, the last couple days, that’s all I’ve been doing. Just trying to work that stuff out and it’s still been like having me super winded, but I mean, I guess at some point, you just gotta get out there and burn it out. So, that’s what my plan is, at least.”

Following the Bucks’ Saturday morning shoot-around, Lillard admitted that the illness caused him to lose “a couple pounds” as he was unable to eat for two days, but he still felt confident that he was going to try to play against the Bulls on Saturday, even if he admits part of the reason of getting on the floor will be trying to get his conditioning back up to where it needs to be to compete on a nightly basis.

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“Just get out there,” Lillard said. “I was a little nervous just to get back in the game because of how I felt just working out and trying to play three-on-three, chest burning.

“But also part of me felt like each day has been better and better and once you get out there sometimes in a game you’re gonna be tired but then you just start to feel better than you expect. I think it’s like an appropriate fear.”

While Lillard knows he might not be in the condition he wants to be and he might end up more winded if he plays Saturday, the 34-year-old point guard says his right calf is good and he doesn’t have any more concerns about the strain that initially put him on the sidelines following the NBA Cup.

“It was a mild strain to begin with,” Lillard said. “I did it against Atlanta in Vegas. It happened against Atlanta. I just tweaked it in the championship game to where it was like I’m going to miss — depending on when our next one is and how I feel — I’m going to miss that one and the one after that.

“But we got on that. We had been on top of that right away, so even when I tried to get back on the court, it was like a little bit tight because I hadn’t been moving, but it was alright. I didn’t have no issues.”

The Bucks tip off against the Bulls at 7 p.m. CT.

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(Photo: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)