{"id":713192,"date":"2026-04-18T13:07:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T13:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713192\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T13:07:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T13:07:01","slug":"will-damian-lillard-return-in-nba-playoffs-vs-spurs-blazers-coach-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713192\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Damian Lillard return in NBA Playoffs vs. Spurs? Blazers coach answers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Interim head coach Tiago Splitter set the record straight that Damian Lillard will not play for the Blazers this 2025-26 season and even in the upcoming NBA Playoffs against the Spurs.<\/p>\n<p>                                Credit: Kevork Djansezian\/Getty Images North America\/Getty Images via AFP &#8211; Scanpix<\/p>\n<p>The Portland Trail Blazers&#8217; inspirational season has taken another gigantic step last Tuesday after the promising group dismantled the Phoenix Suns with a stunning 114- 110 victory in the 2026 NBA Play-In Tournament.<\/p>\n<p>By prevailing over the Suns, the Blazers stamped their ticket to the 2026 NBA Playoffs and will face the second-seeded San Antonio Spurs.<\/p>\n<p>As they are in title contention picture and have a major challenge ahead of dealing with Victor Wembanyama, some people might be wondering about the possibility of Damian Lillard suiting up in the upcoming series.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, Blazers interim head coach Tiago Splitter ended all speculations and made it clear that Lillard will not play this 2025-26 season and their looming seven-game clash with the Spurs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don\u2019t think so,&#8221; Splitter told reporters after the Blazers&#8217; Friday practice in preparation for Sunday&#8217;s Game 1 in San Antonio. &#8220;He\u2019s had his head on next season. We\u2019ve got to be serious about it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of course, we joke about it here and there, but he\u2019s got a plan and we\u2019re all going to follow that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lillard notably sustained a torn left Achilles tendon in Game 4 of last year&#8217;s postseason for the Milwaukee Bucks against the Indiana Pacers. He was subsequently ruled out for the entire 2025-26 NBA season to fully recover.<\/p>\n<p>With their franchise great supporting on the sidelines, Splitter, Deni Avdija and the Blazers can only continue their rally to potentially pull a big-time upset against the Spurs.<\/p>\n<p>                                                    <a href=\"https:\/\/basketnews.com\/plus?utm_source=basketnews_com&amp;utm_medium=bn_plus&amp;utm_id=UA-259273-31&amp;utm_campaign=banners_free_content_for_not_members_bottom_4\" class=\"banners_paid_content_info_block_white banners-paid-content-info-block-white\" data-google-interstitial=\"false\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>                                                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"bn-plus-img img-fluid\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/bn-plus.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                                            Like what we are doing? 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It helps us a lot, and we are committed to delivering you the very latest basketball news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Interim head coach Tiago Splitter set the record straight that Damian Lillard will not play for the Blazers&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-713192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-portland","12":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","13":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","14":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116425867644234030","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}