TUALATIN, Ore. — Portland Trail Blazers star forward LaMarcus Aldridge did not have a very fun holiday.
“I did a little bit with my son,” he said. “I couldn’t move. I was weak.”
His status for Tuesday’s tantalizing match-up against the Eastern Conference-leading Toronto Raptors remains uncertain. He did not do much — and neither did the rest of the Blazers — at Monday’s practice after he missed two games with an upper respiratory illness which he still has not shaken.
“We’ll see how I feel tonight and in the morning,” Aldridge said.
Aldridge missed the Dec. 22 loss to Houston with the illness, and admitted that playing through the illness did more harm than good.
He came back to score 25 points and nine rebounds, but he clearly was not himself as he shot 9 of 28 from the field.
“I wanted to get a win and I thought maybe if I played through it I would get better,” Aldridge said. “We talked it out, myself and the staff, and when I warmed up I felt okay. I tried it out but it hurt me more than helping me.”
On Monday, he was running for the first time in five days albeit it was going one-on-one against Portland assistant coaches Nate Tibbetts and David Vanterpool.
“It was great to see him back,” Damian Lillard said. “First of all, just to see him healthy — but having him on the court will be great, also.”
The Blazers and Raptors have both risen to the top of the standings with both exceeding expectations in the early season.
The Raptors have continued to string together wins despite losing All-Star shooting guard DeMar DeRozan a month ago for an indefinite period.
They’ve gotten solid contributions from their bench but nobody has played as well as point guard Kyle Lowry. Lowry is the engine behind the Raptors top-ranked offense averaging 21 points and eight assists a game.
Lillard, his counterpart Tuesday, has always had respect for Lowry’s game.
“He’s been a really good point guard for some years now,” Lillard said. “It will be a good matchup, and a tough one.”
Lillard was also asked about the first batch of All-Star voting returns, in which he came in eighth among backcourt players in the Western Conference.
“I’m not as popular as those other guys, I guess,” he said. “That was my best guess. I’m just not as popular as them.”
Aldridge said he did not see the results because he was sick but his response was along the same lines.
“I’ve gotten in every year on the coaches votes,” Aldridge said. “So I that’s what I was looking towards.”
Another subplot in this one involves the coaches for both teams. Portland’s Terry Stotts and Toronto’s Dwane Casey go way back to their days on the bench with the mid-90’s Seattle SuperSonics, and were assistants on the 2011 Dallas Mavericks title team.
Stotts was known more then as the offensive innovator while Casey was known more for his defensive expertise. The roles have switched with the Raptors holding the league’s most-efficient offense and the Blazers have relied on their top-three defense.
“There’s a little bit of irony to it,” Stotts said. “I don’t know it. Maybe I got more from him and he got some from me and things kind of even themselves out.”
