After last night's 44-point drubbing at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers, it appeared that the Boston Celtics‘ strong 2016-17 campaign wouldn't last much longer. Trailing the Eastern Conference Finals down 2 games to 0 heading back to Cleveland, a comeback that would require Boston to win four out of five games felt impossible.
Now, that's all but ensured to be the case.
During Game 2, Celtics star point guard Isaiah Thomas re-aggrevated his hip injury, forcing him off the floor for the rest of the evening. The Boston faithful held out hope that he'd return for Sunday's Game 3. Unfortunately, he won't be back until the fall.
From the Celtics' official statement:
The Boston Celtics today announced that Isaiah Thomas will miss the remainder of this year’s postseason following re-aggravation of a right femoral-acetabular impingement with labral tear during Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals against Cleveland. Thomas initially injured the hip during the third quarter of the Celtics’ March 15 game against Minnesota, forcing him to miss the next two regular season contests. The injury was further aggravated during Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals at Washington on May 12.
Thomas heroically performed through the injury at a very high level for two months, but the workload eventually caught up to him:
“Isaiah has worked tirelessly to manage this injury since it first occurred,” said Celtics Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brian McKeon. “The swelling increased during the first two games against Cleveland, and in order to avoid more significant long-term damage to his hip, we could no longer allow him to continue.”
The prospect of the Celtics turning this series around without their best player is bleak, to put it lightly. At this point, the organization and their fans should be proud of the progress the team made this season, and with the top pick as well as free agency, opportunity to improve further beckons this summer.
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