Damian Lillard’s first competitive basketball in more than 17 months lasted 19 minutes and included three made threes in the opening quarter. Portland beat Golden State 123-118 on Wednesday night in its preseason opener, and the only question in the building was whether a 36-year-old coming off a torn Achilles could still move.
He can. Lillard finished with 15 points on 5-of-11 shooting, 3-of-8 from deep, with two steals in 19 minutes. All three of those threes came in the first quarter, before he had any business finding a rhythm.
“It felt like I was back where I belong, back home,” he said.
The Road Back Was Brutal
Lillard tore his left Achilles on April 27, 2025, in Game 4 of Milwaukee’s first-round series against Indiana, on a non-contact play while chasing a long rebound. The Bucks waived him that July and stretched the $103 million still owed on his deal. Portland brought him home on a three-year, $42 million contract and then watched him rehab through an entire season he never played a minute of.
He is a nine-time All-Star and a seven-time All-NBA pick who had not played a game that counted since that April night in Indianapolis. One strong quarter against a Warriors roster missing Stephen Curry and Draymond Green proves nothing about January. It does answer the only question that was keeping Portland up at night, which is whether the leg holds under game speed.
Portland Was Sloppy and Micah Nori Said So
The win itself was ugly. Portland committed 21 turnovers and surrendered 12 offensive rebounds, which first-year head coach Micah Nori added up to 34 extra possessions for a Golden State group made up largely of reserves and camp invitees.
“We’re not going to accept in victory what you wouldn’t accept in defeat,” Nori said.
Golden State hung around anyway, because Portland could not convert the advantage it had. Dalen Terry played 42 minutes for the Warriors, which tells you how thin the visiting rotation was, and the Blazers still lost the possession battle with the fresher legs. In a game that counted, that is a loss, and Nori plainly intends to coach it that way.
Deni Avdija was the best player on the floor, scoring 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting without needing the heavy usage he carried a year ago. Ja Morant, making his own Portland debut, shot 3-of-8 with four turnovers in 19 minutes and missed his only three-point attempt. Nori said Morant looked rusty and sped up, which is the fair read on a guard playing his first game in a new system.
That backcourt is the whole experiment in Portland this season, and Wednesday settled nothing about how the two of them will fit. Nori spread 17 players across 48 minutes and nobody played more than 21, so there is not much to draw from beyond effort and health.
Which is fine, because health was the assignment. Lillard came back from the injury that has quietly finished a lot of guards and started letting it fly from deep like he never left. Everything else can wait until the games count.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.