Bucks followers can exhale Wednesday morning as celebrity Giannis Antetokounmpo’s achilles tendon didn’t tear Tuesday after a non-contact leg damage had the league apprehensive for the worst.
ESPN stories that Antetokounmpo is coping with a calf pressure, which, whereas not excellent, is definitely a much better state of affairs relating to what seemed like a dreaded damage that might probably have robed the Bucks of a playoff run in 2024 and maybe past.
The 6-foot-11 Greek Freak went down in ache holding his calf whereas operating up the ground throughout Tuesday’s essential victory over Jap Convention No. 1 seed Boston Celtics.
Antetokounmpo needed to be helped off the court docket earlier than strolling to the locker room beneath his personal energy.
“Excessive, I might say that,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers stated when requested what stage of concern he had relating to the damage. “However he’s Giannis, I feel everybody in all probability feels the identical method as I do proper now so we’re simply going to hope for the very best.”
The Bucks have three common season video games left and are one recreation forward of the Knicks as they try to maintain onto the second seed within the Jap Convention.
Antetokounmpo is unlikely to play any of the following three video games, as even the mildest of calf strains continues to be a trigger for concern and carries a one-to-two week timetable for return.
If the season ended immediately, the Bucks would possible play the Warmth or Sixers within the first spherical, relying on the outcomes of the play-in event.
The No. 1 seed Bucks have been knocked out within the first spherical of the 2023 playoffs by the No. 8 seed Warmth, marking simply the fourth time in NBA historical past that occurred and the primary since 2011.
