Celtics’ Isaiah Thomas will visit specialists about hip injury
Earlier this week, it was announced that Boston Celtics All-Star point guard Isaiah Thomas would miss the remainder of the postseason after re-aggravating a femoral-acetabular impingement with labral tear in his right hip.
It was a crushing blow to the Celtics’ title hopes and resulted in ticket prices for the remaining Eastern Conference Finals games plummeting. Despite that, Thomas’ teammates lauded the season he had and all that he worked to overcome.
“When I came into the Celtics, I respected him as a player and competitor, but after seeing him go through so much adversity this year and being able to overcome it and being able to deal with that … not a lot of people are able to do that, so it shows the strength of his character and how special of a guy he is,” Al Horford said via the Boston Herald. “I’m happy for the type of year he had. It’s unfortunate that he’s not going to be here with us, but we have to try and find another way without him.”
With his season now over, Thomas has decided to visit several hip specialists to determine the next course of action. One potential option is offseason surgery, but he’s obviously hoping to avoid that.
Thomas has meetings scheduled with the specialists beginning on Monday, so a determination will likely be made in short order. And should Thomas’ injury require surgery, he and the Celtics would ideally like to get it done as quickly as possible so he can get back on the road to recovery.
“There were times where you could see he was really struggling but probably nothing like the other night,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said on Sunday via ESPN. “I thought the first half he was really hurting, really didn’t have any bounce, didn’t have any push. And it’s one of those things where, being around him for the last couple of years, I mean, he wants to play through any and all circumstances.
“So, supposedly when we went back on the court on Friday night, he was all over the doctors with eight minutes left in the third in a 40-point game to come back out. But the bottom line was he didn’t have his burst. He doesn’t have his bounce off of it. He doesn’t have his push off it. He’s going to see some specialists over the next few days starting [Monday] and determine the next course of action.”
In Thomas’ absence, the Celtics will look to bounce-back from an early 0-2 hole against the Cleveland Cavaliers, but that now seems like a tall order.
