The Clover Report: Week Twenty-Two
Well, it has been a stressful week to say the least if you are a Boston Celtics’ fan. Before we get into all of the injuries, let’s start to recap the games. The week started off against in Minnesota against the Timberwolves. It was a TNT game it seems for some reason the Celtics have terrible luck when it comes to TNT games. The Celtics were up in the 3rd and Jaylen Brown went up for a dunk. As you see in the picture above, Brown slipped and fell off his back. It was one of the scariest moments I have ever seen in a basketball game. Brown nearly landed on his neck which obviously would have led to him to be paralyzed. But after being on the ground for 5 minutes, Brown stood up and walked off the court. All of Boston took a collective breath when that happened. As for the rest of the game, the Celtics were able to pull away and beat the Wolves 117—109. Kyrie Irving led the way with 23 points, 7 rebounds, and 8 assists. Al Horford had a nice bounce back game as he finished with 20 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists.
As the Celtics traveled back home, Brown was put into the concussion protocol and is expected to miss a few weeks. But the injuries were far from over. Going into the Pacers game, Horford was also ruled out due to sickness. Despite missing two starters, the Celtics had a 10 point lead after the half. But during the 3rd quarter, Irving left the game due to knee soreness (an issue he’s had for a few weeks). That changed the game as the Pacers took the lead and were able to hold on to win 99—97. Victor Oladipo was great as he finished with a game high 27 points. But the injuries kept piling up after the game. Daniel Theis tore his left meniscus and Marcus Smart tore a ligament in his right thumb. Theis has been ruled out for the year and Smart is out indefinitely. Yep, it’s been a pretty bad week and it wasn’t even over.
The final game of the week came against the Washington Wizards at home. Irving, Brown, Horford, Smart, and Theis were all out for the undermanned Celtics. But luckily, they got off to a hard start and ended up with a 20 point lead in the first half. But in the 2nd half, Bradley Beal went off and got the Wizards got back into the game. The game went back and forth and it ended up going into OT. The Celtics had a shot to win but missed the final shot as the Wizards held on to win 125—124. Marcus Morris led the way with 31 points and Monroe added 16 points and 10 rebounds off of the bench. In wrapping up, it was a tough week for Boston as the injuries mounted up. The number one seed might be out of reach due to the fact that the Celtics are going to take easy on their players to rest of the way. Looks like we are getting that 2nd seed folks.
Steven Santoro (SVS_1993)
