After being demoted from dubious to disqualified 6 on Saturday night, Boston Celtics The defender is expected to fit in tonight’s 7 v match Miami heat in TD Garden, os Brand Spears by Andscape. Brogdon played Game 5 at TD Garden, but after less than 10 minutes of court time, he was pulled from the game and listed as doubtful if he would return that night.
Throughout the season, the Celtics handled some work minutes carefully, particularly with Al Horford, Robert Williams, and Malcolm Brogdon. The ultimate goal was to keep them as fresh as possible ahead of the playoffs, and the strategy has mostly worked until now.
Initially struggling with what was billed as “golfer’s elbow”, Brogdon further aggravated his injury in Game 1 of the Conference Finals by tackling Kevin Love. What was just pain turned into a much more serious injury as he was diagnosed with a partially torn ligament in his forearm which was causing pain and swelling down to his wrist.
Malcolm Brogdon hits everything. Doubtful tonight. If he’s so comfortable shooting, I think he’s at least trying to play. pic.twitter.com/7z62PTUubL
— Bobby Manning (@RealBobManning) May 29, 2023
Originally, Brogdon wore a shooting sleeve and played through pain, but his numbers suffered greatly. Since his first game injury, Brogdon has scored a total of 15 points, making 5 of 22 shots, including 1 of 12 from beyond the arc. He changed his warm-up routine to avoid the extra strain, but the Celtics made the wise decision to keep Brogdon for Game 6.
“It was huge for us” Marcus Smart said during today’s shootaround in Brogdon’s absence in Game 6: “Malcolm has been great to us all year, he’s done a lot of great things for us that we need. So his absence is hard for us. But he’s still on the bench, he’s still talking and coaching us, the things he sees. So even though he wasn’t there, his presence even off the court was important to us. We just have to keep trying for him. It means everyone else needs to step up a bit and we tried to do that, but of course missing Malcolm was a big one for us.
The reigning Sixth Man of the Year was a huge addition to the Celtics and was one of the team’s top perimeter scorers all season. After the news of the severity of his injury went public, his shooting in the series against Miami made a lot more sense. It will be difficult to say how much Brogdon will be involved in the shooting, but the practice videos circulating today give hope.
After being seen training without a shooting sleeve and knocking down shots, the resting Brogdon in Game 6 seems to have done the trick for the time being to bring him back to the floor for the Celtics. As the team heads for one of the most miraculous comebacks in NBA history, they’ll need all hands on deck tonight when the Miami Heat come to town.
