Injuries mounting again during NBA playoffs: ‘We’ve got to fight through it’

Nick Nurse was a bit perplexed while watching Friday’s Game 3 between the Milwaukee Bucks and Indiana Pacers. Though Milwaukee’s Khris Middleton got hot from three-point range down the stretch, the 76ers’ coach thought, “Jeez, Dame [Lillard] hasn’t touched the ball [in what] seems like forever” in a game the Bucks lost in overtime.

“After the game … you find out he’s tweaked his [Achilles],” Nurse said of Lillard Saturday afternoon. “Now it kind of makes sense, my thoughts of, ‘Wow, he hasn’t even dribbled it in the last six minutes.’”

That is the latest in what feels like another NBA postseason marred by a rash of health issues for its star players. And it stretches beyond the Sixers-Knicks first-round series, where reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Joel Embiid has added a mild case of Bell’s Palsy affecting the left side of his face to his recovery from left knee surgery, and Knicks All-Star big man Julius Randle has been out since January with a shoulder injury.

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“A lot of people use this statement, that it’s this time of the year, nobody’s 100%, all that kind of stuff,” Nurse said. “Maybe that’s a little overused, too.”

The Bucks — a potential next opponent for the team that wins the Sixers-Knicks series — are at the top of the list of teams with mounting injuries. Lillard on Saturday was in a walking boot and there is “serious doubt” he will play in Sunday’s Game 4, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium. Milwaukee’s two-time MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo, has already missed the series’ first three games with a calf injury and is doubtful to play in Game 4, coach Doc Rivers told reporters on Saturday. And Middleton was listed as questionable to play in Friday’s loss because of a sprained ankle.

The list of ailing stars also includes the Miami Heat’s Jimmy Butler, who played through an MCL sprain sustained in their play-in loss to the Sixers but has been out for their first-round series against the top-seeded Boston Celtics. And the New Orleans Pelicans’ Zion Williamson, whose masterful 40-point play-in performance against the Los Angeles Lakers was upended by a hamstring injury that has since sidelined him for their matchup against the Oklahoma City Thunder. And Kawhi Leonard, who missed Game 1 of the Los Angeles Clippers’ series against the Dallas Mavericks with knee inflammation.

Those injuries have come on the heels of a regular season when postseason awards — and, in some cases, significant financial gain — were at stake because of the NBA’s new Player Participation Policy, which required a player to log at least 20 minutes in 65 regular-season games to be eligible for such honors.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver recently said at the Board of Governors news conference that stars missed about 15% fewer games, though Tom Haberstroh detailed in a recent piece for Yahoo! Sports that most of those occurred in the first 50 games before reverting to the norm.

But the playoffs are when the league most wants its stars on the floor and at peak performance — and, why so many teams have adopted load-management strategies to combat the 82-game grind. That creates more competitive games and crowns a more legitimate champion, instead of the title simply going to the healthiest contender. And it showcases a better entertainment product for fans paying lucrative ticket prices or tuning in on television.

Yet on Saturday, True Hoop’s Henry Abbott published a piece called “Why is this sport a war of attrition?” Abbott attempted to dissect which players are performing better or worse through the first week of the playoffs, perhaps because their bodies are banged-up and worn-down.

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Some good news? Research by certified athletic trainer Jeff Stotts, who analyzes player injuries for InStreetClothes.com, showed fewer absences during last year’s playoffs (2.37 player games lost per team playoff game) than in 2021-22 (2.90). The highest mark since 2014-15 was in 2019-20, when there were 3.35 player games lost per team playoff game.

Embiid, though, is seemingly always part of that pool.

Last year, a knee injury kept him out of the final game of the Sixers’ first-round sweep of the Brooklyn Nets and Game 1 of their second-round series against the Boston Celtics, and he was clearly fatigued by the Game 7 thrashing. The year before that, he tore a ligament in his thumb and then suffered an orbital fracture and concussion, sidelining him for the first two games of the second-round series against Miami that the Sixers lost in six games. The year before that, it was his knee again, and a soul-crushing Game 7 second-round loss to the Atlanta Hawks.

Embiid has opened up publicly about the mental toll that comes with recovering from surgery. On Thursday, he called the Bell’s Palsy “annoying” and said the condition could linger for weeks or months. But after dropping 50 points in the Sixers’ Game 3 victory to cut New York’s series lead to 2-1, he vowed that he would not quit.

» READ MORE: Nick Nurse impressed with Joel Embiid’s resilience as he battles Bell’s palsy and knee problems

Teammate Nico Batum said that approach means “when your best player can do that, all of us has to show up and be good, as well.” Kelly Oubre Jr. echoed that sentiment, calling Embiid’s mentality “inspirational.”

But Oubre also reminded that, during the playoffs, Embiid is far from the only player “fighting through life.”

The prominent injuries across the league are proof.

“This is April-May-June,” Oubre said. “This is our time of the year where only the strong survive. … We’ve got to fight through it, man, for the bigger goal.”