On a Sunday night in April, Damian Lillard strode to center court. It was a walk he hadn’t made in a while, thanks to abdominal surgery that shut him down in January and limited him to a career-low 29 appearances. But with the spotlight shining on him once again, the six-time All-NBA selection grabbed the microphone, looked up at the crowd in the stands at Moda Center, and made a promise.
“A tough season, a lot of adversity this year,” Lillard said, moments before tipoff of a 31-point loss to cap the Trail Blazers’ worst campaign in nearly two decades. “A lot of things came up that we didn’t expect. But I want you to know one thing: This will not continue. Next year, we’re gonna be back, better than before.”
Entering the season, it seemed reasonable to wonder whether that was really the case — whether Lillard could come back from his lengthy layoff looking like the fire of old, whether bright spot Anfernee Simons could resume his ascent toward offensive stardom with Dame back on the ball, and whether a Blazers team that had mostly underwhelmed in the previous three seasons really had the firepower to climb back up the standings in a brutally competitive and seemingly ever-deepening Western Conference.
Well, so far, so good. One week into the season, every team in the West has tasted defeat … except for the Blazers.
After knocking off the Kings in Sacramento on opening night, outlasting the Suns in overtime after Lillard offered some food for free-throw-line thought to Deandre Ayton, and beating the wobbly Lakers as Dame Time returned to Hollywood, the Blazers welcomed two-time-reigning MVP Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets — the team that unceremoniously drummed Portland out of the playoffs in 2021 — to the Pacific Northwest on Monday. It wasn’t a particularly warm welcome:
Portland exploded out of a 13-point second-quarter deficit to incinerate the visitors with an 80-point second half — the franchise’s highest post-intermission output in 33 years — to cruise to a 135-110 win. Simons, who had struggled to get his shot going through the season’s first three games, found his touch during a third quarter that saw him drill six 3-pointers and score 22 of his 29 points in a five-and-a-half-minute burst. In the blink of an eye, the Blazers had broken the game wide open and were on their way to their first 4-0 start since 1999.
While Simons buried the Nuggets in the third, it was Lillard who set the stage for him to do…