The Trail Blazers suffered their second straight loss after they were defeated by the Memphis Grizzlies at the FedExForum. But that wasn't the only bad news for Rip City – their franchise player Damian Lillard suffered a groin strain and was forced to quit the upcoming NBA All-Star Weekend.

With 3:22 minutes left in the fourth quarter, Lillard returned to the locker room without any body contact and never came back. In the post-game interview, he confirmed that he will not attend the 3-pointer contest on Saturday and the All-Star Game on Sunday.

"I don't think it makes sense to try and force myself to be out there and doing stuff just so I can not miss out on it. I've been there, I've done it all before, and I'm sure I'll have more opportunities to do it, but I wanna make sure that I'm healthy so that when the break is over, I'm rested and have done all I can do to be ready as soon as possible," said Lillard.

The league will need to pick replacements for Lillard to attend both events. So far, Devin Booker from the Phoenix Suns is the most hopeful All-Star substitute. The 23-year-old guard averaged 26.4 points, 4.2 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game. As for the 3-pointer contest, D'Angelo Russell and Karl-Anthony Towns from the Minnesota Timberwolves, Kemba Walker from the Boston Celtics all are able to drain over three triples per game and are qualified to attend the contest.

Before Lillard quit Wednesday's game, he was 7-19 in field goals to score 20 points, five rebounds and 10 assists and he was not the only one struggling with shooting. In fact, four from Portland's starting-lineup shot badly in the game. Carmelo Anthony went 1-15 and did not make any field goal after burying the first one.

On Memphis side, though the team shot even worse from the 3-point line (26.09 percent), they totally destroyed Portland's defense under the rim by leading 76-34 in points in the paint. Memphis' Brandon Clarke was 12-14 to get game-high 27 points and made all his shots under the rim. Ja Morant had 20 points, five rebounds and nine assists.

Los Angeles Lakers 120-116 Denver Nuggets

The purple and gold left the Pepsi Center with their third consecutive win, putting an end to Denver's four-straight-win-streak and expanding their game lead to four over Denver.

Anthony Davis dropped game-high 33 points, 10 rebounds, two steals and two blocks for the Lakers. LeBron James put down a triple-double of 32 points, 12 rebounds and 14 assists. Denver's Jamal Murray got 32 points and 10 rebounds. Nikola Jokic got 22 points, 11 rebounds but only delivered six assists in the game.

Alex Caruso and Dwight Howard were the two powers behind the Lakers' victory. Caruso replaced Rajon Rondo's orchestrating role off the bench thanks to his faster passing and better defense. Scoring 10 points, six rebounds and four assists did not even tell half of his greatness in the game. The true contribution of Caruso was that he made the offense of the Lakers' substitute unit go smoothly, thus giving James more time to rest on the bench.

Howard's role is simpler. The Lakers first tried to send JaVale McGee to defend Jokic closely but it ceased to work because McGee soon fell into foul trouble. Howard has a richer experience in defense and knows how to protect himself from Jokic's little offensive tricks. More importantly, though he's already 34 years old, Howard still enjoys way better athleticism than Jokic and assaulting against Denver's rim led to foul trouble by Jokic, decreasing Denver's most important offensive weapon's time on the court in a covert way.

Wednesday's win enabled the Lakers to enter the All-Star break with a relatively easy lead but James did not seem to pay much attention to such an advantage. "We don't talk about it. For us, we would love to play in front of our home fans as much as we can. We love being there with our Laker faithful. But at the end of the day, you go out and play each and every game like it's its own game. You can't worry about what could happen the following day. You can only look at the present, like we did tonight," said James after the game.

Other games on Wednesday (home teams in bold):

Atlanta Hawks 105-127 Cleveland Cavaliers

Detroit Pistons 112-116 Orlando Magic

Toronto Raptors 91-101 Brooklyn Nets

Milwaukee Bucks 111-118 Indiana Pacers

Washington Wizards 114-96 New York Knicks

Charlotte Hornets 115-108 Minnesota Timberwolves

Sacramento Kings 111-130 Dallas Mavericks

Golden Stat Warriors 106-112 Phoenix Suns

Miami Heat 101 -116 Utah Jazz