Robert Chou
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MILWAUKEE – Until 3:40 remained in the third quarter of Tuesday’s game against the Boston Celtics, things were going well for the Milwaukee Bucks. In the midst of a four-game losing streak, the Bucks were up 15 points on the NBA’s only 60-win team.
Then disaster struck.
Without making contact with another player, Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo collapsed to the ground and immediately grabbed the lower half of his left leg.
After sitting for a short period with his teammates and a trainer surrounding him, Antetokounmpo put weight on his leg and then put an arm around the shoulders of teammates Brook Lopez and Thanasis Antetokounmpo. Finally, Antetokounmpo returned to the Bucks locker room under his own power.
The Bucks announced Tuesday night that Antetokounmpo sprained his left soleus, which is a calf muscle. But Antetokounmpo managed to avoid damage to his left Achilles tendon (at best) and his return will depend on treatment and how the rehabilitation of the injured calf responds, league sources said. The Athletic‘s Shams Charania on Wednesday morning.
The injury overshadowed Milwaukee’s 104-91 victory over Boston.
Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo has avoided damage to his left Achilles tendon (at best) and his return to play is predicated on treatment and rehab response to calf strain, league sources say . @ElAthletic @Stadium. pic.twitter.com/MN2ZFpP6gv
– Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) April 10, 2024
Bucks point guard Damian Lillard, who was picking up the ball to start an offensive possession, was the player closest to Antetokounmpo when he saw the Bucks’ All-NBA power forward fall to the ground.
“Any time you see one of your teammates go down, it’s a real level of concern,” Lillard said. “We spent a lot of time together, more than just our family, so I think that was number one. And then for him to be your best player, the most important part of our team, at this point in the season, it was like an “Oh, shit” moment, especially because there was no one else around.
“And I was right next to him. Then I saw something like his facial expression, his reaction. So obviously I got scared. I knew we were going to call a timeout, so I just dribbled to half court, and when he got up, I realized I wanted to try to put weight on him. And I saw him put some weight on it and it was like, I guess his reaction to doing that is what almost made him fall again. But I saw him put weight on it. So I thought, ‘Okay.’ It seems stronger than he was thinking.
“And to see him be able to walk away on his own, I think that showed me a lot. And obviously, it was encouraging to see. And now all you want is for him to recover.”
Rivers agreed with Lillard that there is real concern about Antetokounmpo’s health going forward, especially with the NBA playoffs beginning April 20.
“High, I would say that,” Rivers said of his level of concern. “But he is Giannis. I think everyone probably feels the same way I do right now. “We’re just going to hope for the best.”
With Tuesday’s victory, Milwaukee moved to 48-31 on the season. With three games remaining in the regular season, the Bucks have a one-game lead over the New York Knicks for second place in the Eastern Conference. The Bucks also have the tiebreaker over the Knicks, but have more concerns in the standings.
The Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers are also two games behind the Bucks. The Cleveland Cavaliers own the division’s record tiebreaker over the Bucks, but have now lost three straight and won just three of their last 10 games. On the other hand, the tiebreaker is up in the air against the Magic, who face the Bucks twice in the final three games of the regular season: first on Wednesday night in Milwaukee and then on Sunday in Orlando for the finale of the regular season for both. equipment.
Among their meetings with the Magic, the Bucks face the Thunder, whom they beat on March 24 in Oklahoma City. This season, the Bucks are 3-3 in games Antetokounmpo does not play.
The soleus is one of two muscles that make up the calf, so teams often refer to soleus strains as the more general calf strain, but there are cases where teams have specified that a player suffered a strain of the soleus. One such case occurred last season with Lillard, while he was a member of the Portland Trail Blazers.
“That hurts,” Lillard said in response to a question from The Athletic about how it felt to suffer the same injury in the first month of the 2022-23 season. “It hurts. … When I did it, I’m usually able to get through it. I feel like I have a high pain tolerance and when I did it I started walking, it’s not just that it was so painful, it’s that the muscle just can’t handle it.
“So, I think once it calmed down, you figured out a way to limp, but it’s a strange feeling. But hearing that, I know, I know that feeling. And also as someone who experienced that, if that’s what it is, it’s encouraging too.”
For Lillard, his soleus injury came after a calf strain in the same leg sidelined him earlier in the season. Lillard first appeared on the injury report with a right calf strain on Nov. 6, 2022, but played through the injury until he eventually suffered a soleus strain a few weeks later.
“When I did it, I hurt my calf and then I came back after, I would probably say, eight or nine days, I got my calf back,” Lillard said. “And then… I had the soleus injury right after I came back. I think it was like a game or two after I came back, I did my soleus. And after that, it was like two weeks. For me it was like two weeks and then I came back and played.”
Lillard first appeared on Portland’s injury report with a right soleus strain on November 20, 2022, and did not play again until the Trail Blazers played the Indiana Pacers on December 4, approximately 14 days after the initial diagnostic.
The playoffs are just 10 days away, so Antetokounmpo’s schedule will depend entirely on the severity of his soleus strain, but Wednesday’s report that Antetokounmpo avoided an Achilles injury was good news for the Bucks.
(Giannis Antetokoumpo Photo: Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
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