Milwaukee Bucks star Damian Lillard left Sunday night’s NBA playoff game against the Indiana Pacers with a lower leg injury in the first quarter and did not return.
Without Lillard, the Pacers cruised to a 129-103 victory to take a 3-1 lead in their first-round series against the Bucks. Following the game, Lillard was seen making his way out of Fiserv Forum with crutches and his left leg in a boot.
“They’re going to do an image tomorrow,” Bucks head coach Doc Rivers said of Lillard’s injury postgame. “Obviously it’s lower leg, and just being honest, it’s not very promising.”
Bucks coach Doc Rivers tells reporters that Damian Lillard is going to get imaging done tomorrow, but Rivers feels it’s “not very promising.”
— Eric Nehm (@eric_nehm) April 28, 2025
With 6:11 left in the first quarter, Gary Trent Jr. missed a 3 from the right wing. The long rebound bounced off the floor near the top of the key, and Lillard made a break for it. As he broke back toward the ball, his legs went out from underneath him. Lillard managed to tap the ball to Trent for an offensive rebound but immediately crumpled to the floor.
As he lay on his back, Lillard reached for his left foot with both arms and sat on the other end of the floor as the Bucks committed a foul to get a stoppage in play. Once that stoppage occurred, Kyle Kuzma and Rivers made their way to Lillard and helped him to his feet. Lillard refused to put any weight on his left foot and hopped off the floor on his right foot as he went directly to the locker room.
“I knew it right away,” Rivers said. “I felt bad for him, you know, the guy tried to come back for his team and, you know, I just felt bad for him.”
Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo said it took him a bit to realize how serious the injury was, but that he knew once he saw that Lillard could not walk off on his own.
“Especially for a guy like Dame, that is a competitor,” Antetokounmpo said. “He wants to play in big games. He wants to help the team win. When you see a guy like that not able to walk on his own, you know this might be serious and then you kind of hope that it’s the best-case scenario. And for now, we just hope it’s the best-case scenario for him, for his health. That’s pretty much it. It’s tough.”
Lillard, 34, missed significant time late in the season with a deep-vein thrombosis in his right calf, which was supposed to knock him out for the rest of the season. He returned to action in Game 2, and in two full games played in the playoffs, he’s averaging 10.5 points, 6.0 assists and 3.0 rebounds per game on .240/.188/.857 shooting splits.
“This is a tough one, honestly,” Rivers said. “Blood clot, followed by this, it’s just tough … He’s just such a great freaking dude — on the basketball level, more importantly as a teammate and a father and all that stuff.
“No one deserves it, but golly, you just look at him, so that’s why I feel bad. It’s just tough. I’ve seen injuries deflate teams, but tonight, that one hurt. I thought our guys tried, but it was tough.”
Rivers told reporters that it was difficult for the team at halftime as the players all went to the trainers room to see Lillard for the first time after he went off the floor initially and wish him well, while also trying to hear about the adjustments they needed to make in the second half.
Backup point guard Kevin Porter Jr. played a larger role for the Bucks without Lillard and put together his best game of the series with 23 points, four rebounds and five assists, but admitted just how difficult it was to see Lillard, a player that he idolized as a teenager, go down with what looked to be a serious injury on Sunday night.
“Dame is one of those special ones,” Porter said. “He’s very much needed, very much impactful in every way. Seeing him go down and not be able to return is definitely defeating as a brother. Seeing his work, getting back from his first injury that he just came back from and then the game gods told him that he has another journey, but he’s a warrior.”
Antetokounmpo echoed that sentiment, adding that the Bucks would help Lillard any way they could.
“A lot of people don’t see what Dame had to deal with, but I’ve been around him every single day and it’s hard,” said Antetokounmpo, who had 28 points in the loss. “It’s hard being in his position, but he’s one of the toughest, mentally toughest guys I’ve ever been around and that’s why he is who he is, and I think he’s going to overcome every obstacle that’s going to be in front of him. Everybody’s going to be there for him. No matter what the obstacle is for him, he’s going to overcome and we’re going to help him overcome.”
(Photo: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
