Luka Doncic, Damian Lillard the Newest victims as NBA Playoff Accidents once again rearing their ugly Thoughts
At this point, it seems like we're not planning to get a comparatively healthy postseason again A the 3:58 mark of the third quarter, with the Mavericks trailing by 13, Doncic rolled his left arm in fairly ugly fashion. He left the court and immediately hobbled to the tube, hopping on one leg. Doncic re-taped the ankle and re-entered the game to start the fourth quarter, but it didn't last long.
"It is not that bad," Doncic stated after Dallas' 130-122 reduction. "Honestly, I'd chance that it was my left ankle. It's not my best."
Luka has indeed had difficulty with his right ankle, having sprained it twice before this year before tweaking it when he slipped during Game 1 of this set. So yeah, I suppose there is technically a bright side here if you are determined to shun the path of pessimism. Perhaps he will have the ability to go in Game 4 on Sunday.
However he surely will not be 100 percent, or probably anywhere close to it. And that's wildly frustrating. The Mavericks, in case you had not noticed, are providing the Clippers everything they can handle. They're down 2-1, but they've had to play significant parts of two games without their two best players (I won't ever get over how bogus the Kristaps Porzingis ejection was in Game 1).
There's a really plausible alternative reality in which the Mavericks are up 2-1 in this series. Rather, the Clippers are in the driver's seat. And maybe that's where they ought to be. Maybe they are the better group. I am not convinced of that. Assuming health, in this particular period in time I could readily assert that Luka and Porzingis are a much better duo than Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, the latter of which will be struggling mightily in this sequence. Without Luka at someplace near 100 percent, however, the Mavericks have no shot.
And therefore, robbed of an actual evaluation for the Clippers, what we're left with is a story as comfortable as it's bothersome -- another playoff series, in yet another postseason, that will largely be characterized by means of an injury. We all know injuries are a part of sports. They can't be avoided. Next man up. We have heard it all, and yet they just continue to pile up for some of the most crucial players in some of the most crucial series.
There's an old saying that the best ability is availability, and man is that appearing more and more true. It has gotten to the point where we may want to forego recognizing the NBA Finals winner since the winner and only engrave"healthiest team" on the trophy. You consider the last five champions -- there is a glaring injury asterisk by four them.
In 2015, the Cavs needed to play the Warriors in the Finals without Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. In 2016, the Warriors lost Steph Curry into a sprained MCL in the first round and that he was never 100 percent thereafter. In 2018, the Celtics had to play the Cavaliers from the East Finals with no Kyrie and Gordon Hayward, and they still took them to seven matches. Last season, the Raptors won their first title in history, and pretty much everybody agrees it would not have happened had Kevin Durant's not torn his calf after which his Achilles tendon. Then Klay Thompson blew his ACL for good action.
This year, it is more of the same -- to say nothing of a worldwide pandemic. Russell Westbrook has to play Houston's first-round series with a quad strain. If he is not back at close to 100 percent past the first round, we will probably never actually know how much this Rockets team truly could have taken this small-ball experiment.
Just when it seemed as the Celtics have turned into a danger, Hayward suffered a Grade 3 foot sprain and is likely out for four weeks. Boston should be OK for the first round. On Friday they went up 3-0 on the Sixers, who, incidentally, are enjoying without Ben Simmons, who partly dislocated his kneecap in the bubble and recently had surgery.
The Raptors are playing with a Nets team without Kyrie and Durant.
Meawhile, the top-seeded Lakers are tied 1-1 with the Portland Trail Blazers, who have dropped Zach Collins (ankle surgery) for this season, and Damian Lillard includes a dislocated finger on his left hand. Lillard will probably play in Game 3 on Saturday, but like Doncic, he won't be 100 percent if he does. So today we will likely wind up having to wonder whether the Blazers truly could have pulled this off mad with a fully-healthy Liillard. That is to say nothing of this fractured lower back with which C.J. McCollum is playing.
There's just no other way to say that: Injuries will be the absolute worst. I don't know whether I just never paid this much attention or if they have gotten more frequent recently, but we're not speaking about nagging injuries for peripheral players. We're talking about major, frequently season-ending reverses for superstars.
We all have this pure, intimate idea of the best athletes in the world getting together on a courtroom and finding out that truly is the very best of the best. No opinions. No asterisks. Just a chunk, two a scoreboard. But it just never works out that way. Since there's always a big group of guys over on the side of the court on crutches. And the fans and players are left to state, until the end of period,"We would have won if..."
It sounds like an excuse. But it isn't. It's true. A harsh one. And it is rearing its ugly head again in this postseason. Who knows if the 2015 Cavs would've beaten Golden State had Irving and Love already been healthy. Who knows if the Warriors would have even gotten into the Finals if they didn't confront hobbled teams in every round. Perhaps the Warriors would have won Games 6 and 7 from Houston in 2018 despite Chris Paul. Maybe the Raptors would've beaten a fully-healthy Warriors group.
But that's the point. The groups, the players, the fans, everybody was robbed of a pure, clean reply to that fundamental question. It's assumed to be the athletes that perform that define winning and losing. But in truth, championships more frequently come down to the ones who don't.
"It is not that bad," Doncic stated after Dallas' 130-122 reduction. "Honestly, I'd chance that it was my left ankle. It's not my best."
Luka has indeed had difficulty with his right ankle, having sprained it twice before this year before tweaking it when he slipped during Game 1 of this set. So yeah, I suppose there is technically a bright side here if you are determined to shun the path of pessimism. Perhaps he will have the ability to go in Game 4 on Sunday.
However he surely will not be 100 percent, or probably anywhere close to it. And that's wildly frustrating. The Mavericks, in case you had not noticed, are providing the Clippers everything they can handle. They're down 2-1, but they've had to play significant parts of two games without their two best players (I won't ever get over how bogus the Kristaps Porzingis ejection was in Game 1).
There's a really plausible alternative reality in which the Mavericks are up 2-1 in this series. Rather, the Clippers are in the driver's seat. And maybe that's where they ought to be. Maybe they are the better group. I am not convinced of that. Assuming health, in this particular period in time I could readily assert that Luka and Porzingis are a much better duo than Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, the latter of which will be struggling mightily in this sequence. Without Luka at someplace near 100 percent, however, the Mavericks have no shot.
And therefore, robbed of an actual evaluation for the Clippers, what we're left with is a story as comfortable as it's bothersome -- another playoff series, in yet another postseason, that will largely be characterized by means of an injury. We all know injuries are a part of sports. They can't be avoided. Next man up. We have heard it all, and yet they just continue to pile up for some of the most crucial players in some of the most crucial series.
There's an old saying that the best ability is availability, and man is that appearing more and more true. It has gotten to the point where we may want to forego recognizing the NBA Finals winner since the winner and only engrave"healthiest team" on the trophy. You consider the last five champions -- there is a glaring injury asterisk by four them.
In 2015, the Cavs needed to play the Warriors in the Finals without Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. In 2016, the Warriors lost Steph Curry into a sprained MCL in the first round and that he was never 100 percent thereafter. In 2018, the Celtics had to play the Cavaliers from the East Finals with no Kyrie and Gordon Hayward, and they still took them to seven matches. Last season, the Raptors won their first title in history, and pretty much everybody agrees it would not have happened had Kevin Durant's not torn his calf after which his Achilles tendon. Then Klay Thompson blew his ACL for good action.
This year, it is more of the same -- to say nothing of a worldwide pandemic. Russell Westbrook has to play Houston's first-round series with a quad strain. If he is not back at close to 100 percent past the first round, we will probably never actually know how much this Rockets team truly could have taken this small-ball experiment.
Just when it seemed as the Celtics have turned into a danger, Hayward suffered a Grade 3 foot sprain and is likely out for four weeks. Boston should be OK for the first round. On Friday they went up 3-0 on the Sixers, who, incidentally, are enjoying without Ben Simmons, who partly dislocated his kneecap in the bubble and recently had surgery.
The Raptors are playing with a Nets team without Kyrie and Durant.
Meawhile, the top-seeded Lakers are tied 1-1 with the Portland Trail Blazers, who have dropped Zach Collins (ankle surgery) for this season, and Damian Lillard includes a dislocated finger on his left hand. Lillard will probably play in Game 3 on Saturday, but like Doncic, he won't be 100 percent if he does. So today we will likely wind up having to wonder whether the Blazers truly could have pulled this off mad with a fully-healthy Liillard. That is to say nothing of this fractured lower back with which C.J. McCollum is playing.
There's just no other way to say that: Injuries will be the absolute worst. I don't know whether I just never paid this much attention or if they have gotten more frequent recently, but we're not speaking about nagging injuries for peripheral players. We're talking about major, frequently season-ending reverses for superstars.
We all have this pure, intimate idea of the best athletes in the world getting together on a courtroom and finding out that truly is the very best of the best. No opinions. No asterisks. Just a chunk, two a scoreboard. But it just never works out that way. Since there's always a big group of guys over on the side of the court on crutches. And the fans and players are left to state, until the end of period,"We would have won if..."
It sounds like an excuse. But it isn't. It's true. A harsh one. And it is rearing its ugly head again in this postseason. Who knows if the 2015 Cavs would've beaten Golden State had Irving and Love already been healthy. Who knows if the Warriors would have even gotten into the Finals if they didn't confront hobbled teams in every round. Perhaps the Warriors would have won Games 6 and 7 from Houston in 2018 despite Chris Paul. Maybe the Raptors would've beaten a fully-healthy Warriors group.
But that's the point. The groups, the players, the fans, everybody was robbed of a pure, clean reply to that fundamental question. It's assumed to be the athletes that perform that define winning and losing. But in truth, championships more frequently come down to the ones who don't.