Damian Lillard Suffers Season-Ending Torn Achilles in Milwaukee Bucks' Game 4 Defeat
The Milwaukee Bucks' season could come to an end in Game 5 of the 2025 NBA Playoffs on Tuesday versus the Indiana Pacers. But one of their best players, Damian Lillard, has already seen his season end prematurely. Lillard injured his lower left leg in Milwaukee's Game 4 loss on Sunday, and one day later, the team
The Bucks also said that Lillard will undergo surgery to repair the tendon, which puts his 2025-26 season in jeopardy, considering the lengthy recovery process. Lillard suffered the non-contact injury when trying to grab an offensive rebound midway through the first quarter. After a missed Bucks shot caromed off the rim, Lillard, standing at the three-point line, stumbled as he attempted to go after the loose ball. He regained his footing in order to tap the ball to a teammate but then immediately crumpled to the floor. He then grabbed his left leg, remaining down for the next defensive possession.
After the Bucks committed a foul to stop play, trainers rushed over to Lillard, who needed help getting to his feet. He then couldn't put any weight on the leg and headed to the locker room, having logged six minutes and going scoreless in the contest. The Bucks would be outscored by 26 points over the remainder of the game, putting them on the brink of elimination.
After the game, head coach Doc Rivers said he knew immediately that it was an Achilles injury. Taking place as early as it did in the game, and to a player who had fought so hard to return to the court just last week, the injury took the wind out of the sails of the entire team.
'I've seen injuries deflate teams. Tonight, that one hurt. I thought our guys tried, but it was tough,' said Rivers. 'All of them are in there at halftime in the training room. It's really tough to talk to a team after that. My job over the next 40 hours is to get us upright again, to try to win one game in Indiana and try to get it back [to Milwaukee]. But my brain is in the same place where the players are—and that's with Dame. That's just the human part of this job.'
This was just Lillard's third game back after a scary bout with deep vein thrombosis in his other leg—his right calf. Lillard missed roughly a month of action due to that, and predictably, was rusty upon his return. He shot just 6 of 27 (22.2 percent) in his two-plus games since returning to the court after a bounce-back regular season. In his second year in Milwaukee, Lillard increased his averages in points, rebounds, assists and steals, while shooting higher percentages from both the field and the three-point line.
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Lillard, 34, is the same age as Kobe Bryant was in 2013 when he suffered a torn Achilles tendon. Bryant's injury also occurred in April of that season, and he missed the Los Angeles' Lakers postseason run, as well as their first 19 games of the following season. He returned eight months after the injury, but perhaps too quickly. Just six games after coming back, Bryant suffered a tibial plateau fracture in the same leg, which ended his season.
On the longer end of an Achilles tear recovery is Kevin Durant, who tore his in June 2019 during the NBA Finals, missed the entire following season, and didn't return to the court until December 2020. That gave him 18 months of recovery, and Durant's production has been steady since then, which could influence Lillard's rehab process.
Lillard is due over $54 million next season, and just four players will earn more than that. He then has a player option for the 2026-27 season worth over $58 million.
This is the latest in a string of untimely injuries for Bucks stars over the last few postseasons. Sunday's game was only the third playoff game in which Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo played together, due to injuries to both. Lillard also missed two playoff games last year due to an Achilles injury to his right leg, while Antetokounmpo missed the entire 2024 playoffs due to a calf injury of his own.
In the 2023 playoffs—before Lillard was on the Bucks—Antetokounmpo missed two full games and most of another during Milwaukee's five-game first-round loss to the Miami Heat. Just one year before that, All-Star Khris Middleton missed 10 of Milwaukee's 12 postseason games, and the team was not able to successfully defend its championship.
With Lillard out for the rest of the 2025 playoffs, at the very least, Milwaukee will turn to Kevin Porter Jr. as its starting point guard. He was acquired at the trade deadline and scored a postseason career-high of 23 points in Sunday's Game 4 defeat.
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