Jaylen Brown’s ankle injury looked scary at first.
“I thought it was his knee. With no contact, that's always scary,” Marcus Smart said. “But as I went to go check on him, he was like ‘it's my ankle.’”
It didn’t take long for the fear of a serious injury to subside within the Boston Celtics. Brown even lobbied to get back into the game.
“(He) still had the adrenaline, wasn’t swelling as much, but overnight it did and he has some pain,” Ime Udoka said after the team’s Wednesday practice. “But (it’s) nothing long-term. I’m not sure of the severity of the grade, but it didn’t look like anything major that he’d be out for weeks.”
The coach characterized the injury as a “day-to-day thing” and added that while Brown is unlikely to go against the Memphis Grizzlies tomorrow night, there's an outside chance that one more night of rest and treatment could lead to a surprising recovery. Brown will be reevaluated in the morning.
That means the Celtics will have to figure out a different starting unit. It's possible Grant Williams, Derrick White, or Aaron Nesmith will get the call, depending on how much emphasis Udoka wants to put on keeping bench rotations intact.
“Although Aaron started (the second half) and didn’t score a lot, he impacted the game with his energy and effort and physicality,” Udoka said. “Derrick is – regardless of Jaylen being gone or not – he’s gonna take on that role of playmaker, scorer. And what we’ve learned quickly is that he’s adapting to what we do, and we have kind of put a little package in place for him to make plays and get downhill. … And Grant – Grant’s been great all year. And when guys double-team Jayson like they did late, he’s the recipient of those plays and just has to make the shots or the right read.”
The Celtics have struggled when not whole this season, so there might be a temptation to get Brown back as soon as possible. The Celtics, though, understand that dealing without Brown for a couple of games now is smarter than having him hobbled the rest of the way.
“There's different levels in the NBA season and after the All-Star break is when you start kind of ramping up, getting ready for the fun part of the season,” Al Horford said. “You want to make sure that all your guys are healthy and they're going and I know Jaylen really wants to get out here but, obviously, he has to take care of himself. And, now, it's an opportunity for some of our other guys, in this case Aaron, to step up and to and to show, kind of like he did yesterday, with his energy, defensively setting a tone, that he can play and that he can contribute.”
HALFTIME MESSAGE
The Celtics turned the Hawks game around thanks to a 14-0 run to start the third quarter and tie the game. It was night and day for a Celtics team who spent the first half in a bit of a daze after Brown’s injury.
“We were definitely taken aback by it, and it took us probably until halftime to get it going,” Horford said. “Marcus in the locker room just told us at halftime we were going to win the game - that we had to come out with a lot of energy. We responded - we came out, those first six minutes of the third were key.”
Games like this could be seen as a sort of gauge of the team’s progress, but Horford pushes back on that.
“I feel like that gauging part is kind of over. I feel like we've established who we are, what we're about, how we want to play, what we can do,” he said. “I feel like, with our group, we know what we're about, we know who we are. That identity is becoming more clear and defensively is where we always want to set the tone. Looking at this month, we are going to play a lot of really good teams and I feel like it's at the right time for us to continue to prepare to get ready for the playoff push.”
PREPARING FOR MEMPHIS
The next challenge for Horford and the Celtics are the Memphis Grizzlies, the young and exciting Western Conference third seed with an eye-popping talent in Ja Morant.
“Big fan of his,” Horford said. “Just so impressive of how relentless he is and how he's gotten better. You see him getting to the basket which is impressive but also shooting the ball, he's shooting the ball pretty well from the 3-point line and just being very aggressive, very free. Their team in general, they play the right way, they move the ball, everybody seems to know their role, they are a very fun team to watch. It's a big challenge for our group but we feel like it's going to be good for us to play against them.”
That challenge might be why the Celtics scheduled a rare practice in between games this week. Teams don’t usually practice in these situations, especially a team that had one day off after a three-game-in-four-nights stretch.
“We shifted the focus on to Memphis and Morant specifically and how we're going to defend him differently than a guy like Trae Young and what they're good at,” Udoka said. “Which is number one in transition, number one points in the paint as a team and he is individually leading the league as far as that. And so we want to defend them a little bit different than Young. And number one offensive rebounding team, second-chance points. So all the points of emphasis we kind of touched on today, before we dig into specific plays tomorrow in shootaround.”
Horford is getting some extra juice from the challenging March schedule, calling this the fun part of the season.
“I'm more excited about the level of competition that we are going to face,” he said. “They are going to challenge us in many ways and they score a lot in the paint so it's a big challenge.”
More than that, Horford is ready to take everyone’s best shot, especially in a month where the world will be focusing on basketball.
“The basketball, it’s more intense, it’s different, because every team is starting to fight for positioning, trying to put themselves in the best position for the playoffs,” Horford said. “This time of year is always exciting, because I feel like it always bumps into, with the college stuff, March Madness and all that, and you get to watch some of those games. It’s just like, basket all-wise, it’s just a fun time to play this time of year.”
WHITE’S TOUGH TRANSITION
While White is getting comfortable with his team on the floor, he’s still trying to get comfortable in his new city off the floor.
“It’s been a little crazy on that end, just trying to figure out where we’re going to stay, what the next steps will be,” White said. “But the break gave us a chance to go back home to San Antonio - our old home, I guess - and get our stuff together and move out here. It’s exciting, but it’s a little stressful, but it’s starting to get better each and every day.”
The stress is magnified by his wife’s pregnancy. He announced back in November that he and his wife Hannah are expecting, which means a lot of scrambling for a new doctor.
“She was freaking out a little bit about it, but everybody around here has been super helpful on that aspect,” he said. “Went to the doctor the other day, and making sure all the steps go smoothly on that end. Everybody has been super helpful and that made it a lot less stressful.”
Since people will likely ask, here’s what teams are allowed to do for traded players.
- Pay for a hotel room for up to 46 days after a trade
- Pay up to $4,500 a month for housing costs for up to three months
- Pay for “reasonable” moving expenses. For example, a married player can ask the team to pay for moving his and his wife’s car. He cannot ask to move more cars than that, so anyone with a few in his garage has to figure the rest out himself.
Teams also have people in the organization who are paid to help players in these situations so they can focus more on playing while a staffer handles some of the moving details.
