Gordon Hayward's foot MRI comes back negative, will sit vs. Pistons

Gordon Hayward won’t be playing on Friday night against the Pistons but the Celtics are optimistic about his ability to return soon after an MRI on his sore left foot on Thursday revealed no structural damage.

“Just same pain that hopefully will dissipate in the next couple of days,” Brad Stevens said. “They don’t seem very concerned about it from a long-term perspective.”

Hayward has missed two straight games with a sore left foot in the last week that had popped up again despite missing four weeks with a hand injury. The foot soreness has apparently been bothering Hayward since early in the season but it doesn’t sound like a situation that the team will need to manage over the long-term.

“I don’t think so,” Stevens said. “I think it’s just a spot. So I think it’s more – it’s nothing muscular, it’s nothing bone wise. So he’s just got pain in one spot, whether that’s from the shot that could be better within any day now or whether it’s something that he just needs to continue to figure out how to manage it best. That’s probably the way that they’re going to have to look at it. But it doesn’t sound – he’s going to be day to day.”

Hayward has only been healthy enough to play 11 games thus far, which has led to some significant frustration for the swingman.

“I would say so,” Stevens said. “But you can ask him that whenever he gets a chance to talk. But yeah, I would say. I think it’s one of those things that he just hasn’t been able to string together a good long run yet.”

Marcus Smart also remains sidelined for his fourth straight game with an eye infection and there hasn’t been much progress in his recovery as he remains away from the team.

“I think they actually said he’s getting a little bit better,” Stevens said. “The last report I got, they didn’t think they’ve seen one this bad. So it’s just been a tough go about it. He’s just really had a tough go about it. So I don’t know when he’ll be back. He’s still not around here.”

Without Hayward and Smart, the Celtics will just have 11 active players against the Pistons on Friday as Carsen Edwards remains in Vegas for the G-League showcase.

“He’s going to finish out the showcase and then come back,” Stevens said of Edwards. “I think we have to — we’ll look at it again after Christmas, they have a couple of games — but I think we have to probably try to have every healthy body here starting on January 3rd for that stretch of games until February 13. Because that will be the time where we may sit a guy or two, here or there.”

Blake Griffin, Luke Kennard and Christian Wood have all been ruled out for the Pistons for tonight's matchup