Damian Lillard walked to the court and pointed at his right wrist, Dame Time ready to tick on an NBA court for the first time since he ruptured his Achilles tendon on April 27.
“I knew he was gonna do that,” his ex-teammate Bobby Portis said.
What came next probably shouldn’t have been a surprise either. Lillard won the NBA’s 3-Point Contest for the third time, and for the first time, he did it with a surgically repaired left Achilles tendon.
Lillard made 10 straight 3s during the finals to help him win, with hot shooting injecting some energy into the building during the first event Saturday night during All-Star weekend. Lillard is the third player to win the event three times.
“Every day I’m up early in the morning warming up and shooting the ball, off the dribble, catch-and-shoot, every style of shot you can shoot. I’m shooting them every day, hundreds of ’em,” Lillard said. “So I knew that this would not be an issue for me. I can’t say I knew that I would win ’cause you just never know. But I knew I would be able to be strong out there and have a chance.
“I came in confident.”
Lillard’s inclusion in the contest caused some mild controversy — and plenty of intrigue — because he hasn’t played this season. He joked with league officials that he’d be ready to shoot if they needed him in the contest, and once a spot opened, he agreed to compete.
“I get up every day, and my mind is, like, engaged in being able to play the game,” Lillard said. “I knew it was an opportunity to get back on this stage. I keep saying it, but being a part of some competition. I’m going one-on-zero with myself every single day, trying to get numbers and trying to perform better and better and be healthier and healthier. So just to be amongst other players and put a number on the board, some time, some fans, stuff like that, I was excited for it.”
Lillard needed help to get the win. He watched from the sidelines as Devin Booker went to the final right corner with a chance to win, only for the Suns star to fall short.
“I was at his mercy,” Booker said.
Lillard outshot Booker and Charlotte Hornets rookie Kon Knueppel in the finals.
“Dame is somebody I have a lot of respect for,” Booker said. “It’s his third time winning it. Somebody I was teammates with in the Olympics. Going into it, I thought it was going to be Kon or Dame or me, and it ended up being the final round and some good shooting going on.”
None of the three was the crowd favorite at the start.
LA Clippers fans packed in on “The Wall” — the signature fan section of the Intuit Dome — and chanted Norman Powell’s name when he was introduced. The Clippers traded Powell to Miami this past June in a three-team deal that sent John Collins to the Clippers.
Powell scored 23 points in the first round before being eliminated alongside Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell (24 points), Denver’s Jamal Murray (18), Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey (17) and Milwaukee’s Bobby Portis (15).
It was clear early that Lillard’s rehab had progressed to a point where he could move confidently from station to station, the perfect rotation on the ball from the flick of his wrist ripping through the nets like old times.
He’s still recovering from his injury, he said, and the win on Saturday won’t force him to come back faster than planned. Nothing that happened in the contest changed that.
Still, this was an appetizer — a chance for one of the NBA’s greats to get back where he belonged.
“It felt like a game for me,” Lillard said. “Coming into it, I was like, I don’t know if you can compete harder at a 3-Point Shootout, but I definitely cared more. I didn’t come in, ‘Oh, it is what it is.’ I was like, ‘No, I’m trying to win.’”
Portis, who was on the court last season when Lillard suffered the major injury, was the first person to go to celebrate with the new champion on Saturday.
“You know, that’s my brother. I know him truly,” Portis said. “So it was good to see him win, especially with everything that he went through over the last year. He had the blood clots, then came back and played, and tore his Achilles, and then was out all season.
“I think it was good for him to be able to be on this platform and, you know, show the world that he’s still him.”
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