The Boston Celtics have several key injuries for their pivotal matchup against the Indiana Pacers on Friday, but Jaylen Brown leads the list.

MassLive Boston Celtics beat reporter John Karalis tweeted an update on April 4.

Brown, a third-year shooting guard, sat out the home-and-home series against the Miami Heat. He told The Boston Globe on April 3 the injury has severely affected his mobility.

I've never experienced it [like this] where it's hard to bend down, it's hard to stand up or put your socks on. I've had it where I landed on my back and had injuries where I fell. That was like a bruise, but this is more muscular I think than anything.

Brown told The Boston Herald's Mark Murphy he sustained the injury during Monday's shootaround.

Kind of spazzed up out of nowhere. I did a normal action, I went to reach down and my back felt like it was cranking up. I reached down again and it locked up on me and I went right back into treatment. They were telling me that my back was spazzing out.

As for Morris, he is dealing with right knee soreness. Horford is coping with a similar situation, although it's his left knee which isn't 100 percent at the moment.

Jaylen Brown Marcus Morris
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The Pacers also have several injuries. Guards Darren Collison (groin) and Wesley Matthews (hamstring) have missed Indiana's last several games. The Pacers also don't have leading scorer Victor Oladipo (ruptured quad tendon) for the rest of the season.

The injuries couldn't come at a worse possible time for Boston. The Celtics are slugging it out with the Pacers for the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference.

Whoever prevails will earn home-court advantage in the best-of-seven first-round playoff series. Both teams have identical 47-32 (.595) win-loss records through April 4.

Friday's nationally televised matchup pits two short-handed teams playing for crucial playoff seedings. This should be interesting, to say the least.