Scott Garbarini/NBA.com
Though there’s little question the Portland Trail Blazers are best off with a healthy Damian Lillard, they’ve been doing just fine without him lately.
With Lillard a possibility to return, the resurgent Trail Blazers aim for a third straight win and continued home success against the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday night.
After losing five straight – the last two with Lillard sidelined by plantar fasciitis – from Dec. 16-23, Portland (13-20) has passed the slumping Nuggets and Minnesota in the Northwest Division standings with a pair of impressive wins without the star point guard.
Others have raised their play to fill the void, with Allen Crabbe scoring a career-high 26 points in Saturday’s 105-76 rout of Eastern Conference-leading Cleveland and C.J. McCollum recording a personal-best 35 in Sunday’s 98-94 win at Sacramento.
Lillard practiced Tuesday and said the pain in his left foot is gone, though it’s still uncertain whether he’ll play Wednesday.
“I want to make sure that I’m 100 percent ready to go,” he said. “I don’t want to be out there feeling restricted or uncomfortable, so when I feel that I’m ready to go, then I’ll play.”
McCollum’s strong performance this month has allowed Lillard to be careful in his recovery. The emerging guard is averaging 22.9 points and shot 42.6 percent on 3-pointers over his last 10 games.
Crabbe has averaged 16.8 points while starting four straight in Lillard’s place.
Lillard had 30 points and seven assists at Denver on Nov. 9, but the Nuggets shot 51.9 percent to stop an eight-game series skid with a 108-104 win.
“We missed a ton of open shots. I thought we had a lot of great looks that we just couldn’t knock down, struggled to finish around the rim,” coach Mike Malone said. “But at the end of the day, this loss I will attribute to our inability to value the basketball.”
Will Barton did record 29 points and is averaging 23.0 over his last six to help counter the absence of leading scorer Danilo Gallinari, who’ll miss a sixth straight game with a sprained left ankle.
Emmanuel Mudiay will miss an 11th consecutive game for Denver with a sprained right ankle. The rookie guard contributed 18 points and six assists in the Nov. 9 win.
“If we were healthy and fully loaded, I’m sure we would play a little bit better,” Malone said. “But I’m not going to use that as an excuse for our loss (Tuesday).”
The short-handed Nuggets have dropped 10 of 11 in Portland and four straight since a 111-109 victory on Feb. 27, 2013.
