Is Garnett hurt worse than Celtics are letting on?
Don’t ever believe coaches or team executives when it comes to one of their players’ injuries – you’ll see why at the end of this story.
Boston Celtics star Kevin Garnett is not expected to play on Wednesday night against the Charlotte Bobcats – bet on the game at WagerWeb.com – and already has missed 15 of the team’s past 19 games because of a knee injury. And now there are some rumblings out of Beantown that his knee injury might be worse than originally diagnosed – rumblings that appear to be true despite the next several inches of this story containing denials from the Celtics.
Garnett missed 13 games with a strained knee, then saw part-time action in four matchups before sitting out Friday’s tilt against the Hawks and Sunday against the Thunder.
So is the team running new tests on KG to see if there’s something worse going on?
“No,” coach Doc Rivers said Monday. “He’ll be getting it checked all the time as he goes on, but it’s just sore. We’re fine with what we know. I doubt if he plays Wednesday. He’s likely for Friday (against Atlanta), but that depends on how he moves in practice, and that’s probably going to be on Thursday.”
Celtics boss Danny Ainge continued to insist that the initial diagnosis of a strained right knee muscle hasn’t changed.
“Nothing has changed from our initial diagnosis to where we are now,” said the Celtics president of basketball operations. “We’re just being cautious. … This isn’t a setback.”
But here’s a great stat from the Boston Herald: Garnett already has played 5,000 more minutes than Larry Bird did before Bird’s body gave out.
Boston needs him KG pronto because it is looking rather likely that the Celtics might lose out to the Magic for No. 2 in the East.
If they don’t finish ahead of the Magic, the Celtics are guaranteed homecourt advantage in just one round of the playoffs. They likely will have to win in Orlando, in Cleveland and in Los Angeles to take another title. Last year, with a healthy KG, they couldn’t even win in Atlanta in the playoffs.
There has been one benefit of KG’s absence, and that has been Glen Davis’ play in his spot. Davis had his second successive double-double (19 points, 10 rebounds) in the Celtics’ 103-84 victory over Oklahoma City. He had 19 points and 12 rebounds at Atlanta last Friday night and, last week scored a career-high 24 points at Memphis.
“You don’t want Kevin to be hurt, but the experience Baby [Davis] has been getting – and before Leon [Powe] went down – the experience these guys are getting [is] going to be huge for us in the playoffs,” Paul Pierce said.
Boston has seven games remaining and is in a virtual tie with Orlando for No. 2 right now. Four of the Celtics’ remaining games are against playoff teams. Orlando has nine games left, but just three against playoff teams.
UPDATE: Rivers announced after practice Tuesday that the team would be “shutting down” Garnett, with him now likely to return the last few games of the season to prepare for the playoffs.
NBA Betting at WagerWeb.com
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
