Amazing game by Jimmy but all these injuries seriously suck, Giannis, Kawhi, Herro, now Fox… what’s going on. Maybe they really should shorten the regular season somewhat or at least loosen up the schedule, this is brutal.
The injuries are definitely deflating, no doubt about it. They're mostly the result of bang-bang plays though iirc:
- PG: badly sprained his knee landing awkwardly after a rebound
- Giannis: fell on his ass and sprained his back committing a charge
- Herro: broke his hand diving for the ball
- Ja: sprained his hand committing a charge
- Fox: broken fingertip. Origin unclear, but bones usually break due to abrupt blunt trauma
- Embiid: sprained his knee landing awkwardly after a block attempt
- Jimmy: Bruised ass cheek. Origin unclear, but a bruise is usually the result of abrupt blunt trauma
- Oladipo: tore his patella tendon on a drive. No way to tell if overuse played a part in that, but he only played 42 games as a bench player this season, so overuse wouldn't stem from too many games.
Kawhi's injury is the only one without an obvious cause, and unfortunately that's just Kawhi being Kawhi. He'd still give Giannis a run for his money for best player in the league if he could ever stay healthy, but it doesn't look like that's in the cards anymore.
(AD is also limping around frequently, but I don't think I've ever seen a single game in which he didn't go down for a play or more with some minor thing or other, so I wouldn't account for that.)
To me it looks like this string of injuries is a combination of plain bad luck and a broken charge rule. Fix that and at least a couple of these injuries don't happen.-