Heal you, NBA playoff injury bug. Why do you spoil a glorious performance with your hideous presence and pathetic sting?
I’ll back out before I actually get this Shakespearean monologue going, but it’s quite disappointing that these NBA playoffs are riddled with injuries less than a week into the first round. Before game 1 on Saturdays the playoffs would already start without Robert “Time Lord” Williams, Ben Simmons and Luka Dončić. With the Boston Celtics having the clear upper hand at the Brooklyn Nets and the Dallas Mavericks winning without their star and ending their streak 1-1, it looks like those players could return to court injuries only had in the NBA playoffs minimal damage dealt.
Then came Tuesday and Wednesday, and in the late game key players went under for serious championship contenders. On Tuesday night, Devin Booker was injured in the 125-117 loss of the 1st-seeded Phoenix Suns to the 8th-seeded New Orleans Pelicans. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst today reported that Booker could miss 2-3 weeks of action. On Wednesday, the No. 3 seed Wedlwaukee Bucks didn’t just lose 114-110 they also lost their second-best player, Khris Mi, to the 6th-seeded Chicago BullsDdleton, to a sprained MCL.
The suns should still be able to get past the pelicans, assuming that Chris Paul and the rest of the team avoided injury in the first round. However, the Bucks have their all-star scorer and one of the long, delicate players that make this defense so wild. They face a battle against the Bulls, who have two long all-star perimeter players capable of fielding huge numbers.
Even if last year’s conference champions make it through the first round, they could both face teams whose health will improve while theirs is declining. Williams could be back for the second round if the Celtics win and the Nets bounce back from a 2-0 deficit. Simmons will likely be able to play. If the Mavericks get Dončić back soon, they will win, and if not, the undermanned Suns will have to face the Jazz in the second round with Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley Jr. healthy.
G/O Media may receive a commission
Year after year we just can’t get teams into the NBA playoffs at full capacity. Earlier this season, Kawhi Leonard and Jamal Murray rehabilitated their ACL tears from last year. Then, for the Nuggets, one of their worst fears came true when Michael Porter Jr. required a third back surgery after signing him for a Max rookie extension. That left the Los Angeles Clippers out of the playoffs, and Nikola Jokić’s historic statistical season may have been swept out of the playoffs by the Golden State Warriors, who are starting to get healthier.
For the past three seasons, it’s been the Warriors who have taken the brunt of the injury spells dating back to Kevin Durant in the second 2018 round of the playoffs. Last season, the Los Angeles Lakers spent the year hovering around the No. 2 seed, and injuries to LeBron James and Anthony Davis left them with play-ins and a first-round series against the team that eventually picked the number should be 2. 2 seeds, the suns. James wasn’t at full strength, Davis went down, Paul would go down and then struggle through injury to come back as the Suns pulled off a six-game win, which should have been great second round match.
The Nets lost Harden and Irving damn close to tipoff of their much-anticipated second-round series against the Bucks last year. The Bucks won and would face the Atlanta Hawks in the most anti-climate Eastern Conference fFinals of all time after Giannis Antetokounmpo and Trae Young both missed the last two games of this series.
Can basketball fans take a break? We’re struggling through this regular season of load managementment and too many Lakers and Knicks games on national television for the playoffs to develop into a team to shore up with Popsicle Sticks and Elmer’s Glue long enough to last the two months 400 meter dash for the title.
I know injuries and other strange circumstances happen every postseason, Tom Haberstroh wrote in 2020 on how every NBA champion should be given an asterisk, though some of his points were a hoax. But the last two seasons have been just awful, with stars falling regularly because now there is a chance of a semifinal Suns vs. Jazz due to Dončić’s injury during the endgame of the regular season and will be played without bookers.
Perhaps the top three players on each team should be placed in hyperbaric chambers when they travel from now on. Something must be done. All Modern science and stress management are available, and we as a society cannot keep NBA players on the court from April through June. It’s so sad, almost as sad as getting a Shakespeare job at age 15.
