The San Antonio Spurs already find themselves with the unenviable task of having to come back from a 0-3 deficit to the Golden State Warriors, and now they’ll have to do it without the help of center David Lee.
Lee suffered what has been determined to be a partially torn patellar tendon in a Game 3 loss to the Wizards and may now face season-ending surgery, ESPN reports. The team plans to have him reevaluated in a few days, but in all likelihood, Lee’s postseason is over.
Prior to the MRI results, Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich said he didn’t feel the injury was too severe, but had essentially ruled Lee out for Game 4 anyway.
“He’s probably not gonna play, but I don’t think it’s serious,” Popovich said. “He did an MRI, and we haven’t gotten the results yet. But hopefully he just got like a bruise or something like that. It didn’t really swell up, it just got stiff. So he’ll probably be out.”
The snake-bitten Spurs could ill afford to lose Lee having already seen Kawhi Leonard and Tony Parker go down with significant injuries, but that appears to be the hand they’ve been dealt.
In 76 games for the Spurs this season, Lee averaged 7.3 points, 5.6 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 0.5 blocks per game.
