The Boston Celtics dropped a 96-95 heartbreaker to the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday after failing to convert consecutive potential game-winning shots as time expired, but the loss is the least of their concerns as Marcus Smart went down in the fourth quarter with a scary looking injury to his left calf area.
The Celtics quickly announced that Smart suffered a strained calf, but Boston fans will be holding their collective breath until an MRI can confirm that initial diagnosis. Everyone remembers the vivid replay of Kevin Durant's infamous Achilles tear in the 2019 NBA Finals, where you could see the tendon snapping clear as day, and Smart's injury looked eerily similar.
Here's the zoomed-out view of Smart's injury:
Here's the zoomed-in view:
For the ominous sake of comparison, here's what Durant's injury looked like:
The Celtics likely administered a Thompson Test right away, which is typically an early, accurate way to determine whether an Achilles is ruptured. But again, that close-up replay of Smart's calf area snapping could be cause to fear the worst until an MRI can give a definitive diagnosis.
Even if Smart's injury is a calf strain, don't let the innocuous "strain" designation fool you. That can be a serious injury. Durant's initial injury in the 2019 postseason, suffered in Game 5 of the second round vs. Houston, was also a calf strain, and that kept him out a month. Had it not been the Finals when he returned, Durant likely would have been out closer to six weeks.
Dr. Alan Beyer, an orthopedic surgeon and the executive medical director at Hoag Orthopedic Institute in Southern California, spoke with CBS Sports throughout Durant's 2019 month-long calf-strain recovery, and he repeatedly warned that a calf strain, which in reality is a tear, can easily become a precursor to a full Achilles rupture, which unfortunately became the case for Durant when he returned, perhaps too early.
So either way, there's a good chance Smart will be out for a good while. But anything is better than a ruptured Achilles. It looked bad, but the Celtics will continue to hope the original report of a calf strain is accurate.
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January 31, 2021 at 11:35AM
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Celtics' Marcus Smart suffers strained calf vs. Lakers, but close-up view paints a potentially grimmer picture - CBS Sports
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