Walker on being pain-free: ‘It’s joy’
Kemba Walker, courtesy of a collision with the Knicks’ Nerlens Noel in the third quarter, left for good holding his right rib cage. He didn’t return — the Celtics guard had reached his minutes limit — and later told his coach he was fine.
“He told me afterwards he was fine, and he told me he wasn’t lying,” Brad Stevens said after the Celtics’ 105-75 loss to New York. “He has a tendency to tell me everything’s OK, thumbs-up, and all that stuff, but he said he’s fine but it knocked the wind out of him. And I thought, as anybody would have predicted with very limited practice time, there were parts that he probably felt a little rusty. But as far as physically moving up and down the floor, all those type of things, I thought he looked good.”
Above all, though, Walker says he may feel better than at any other point in his tenure as a Celtic. Based on a very limited one-game sample size, that’s how his left knee feels after an extensive strengthening program.
“When did I feel fully healthy? I don’t know. I can’t tell you exactly when but it’s just like as the days go by, mentally, it’s just like every day, every day I’m not thinking about it,” he said. “At one point it was like, mentally that’s all I could think about. Like, on the court, in the bubble, that’s all I could think about was my knee. Every step I took, every move I made, it was something, even when I wasn’t playing.
“I’m out there and I’m trying to do a step-back and the first thing out of my mind is like, ‘Damn, this is probably going to hurt.’ Not even worried about making or missing the shot, it’s just about the pain,” he said. “Today when
I’m out there I’m making the moves I normally make and I don’t feel anything and it’s joy. I’m excited. I put in a lot of work. I really attacked my rehab to get where I’m at and I want to continue to build off this and just try to stay healthy. That’s the most important thing.”
And now, heading into an important two-game mini-series in Philadelphia on Wednesday and Friday, Walker can’t wait to do more — maybe even escape that 20-minute restriction he filled to the limit on Sunday.
“I’ll get my rhythm, it’s just a matter of time. I’m not in any type of rush. Obviously, I want to play well but it just doesn’t happen that way sometimes, it doesn’t happen that fast,” he said. “I’m just going to continue to work hard and get my shots up and continue to get to my spots and shoot my open shots. My rhythm will come, it’s a long season.
“We have so many more games left. I think today my teammates were so excited that I was back, they kind of just sat around and wanted me to do so well and wanted me to shoot and get back right away. I’m just trying to tell them to play ball and not worry about me. We have to get that chemistry back. I’ve been out for awhile, I haven’t been playing with the team or practicing much. It’s only a matter of time. We’ll be fine. We are still missing guys, it’s going to be like this throughout the course of this year. We have to adjust, we have to adapt and be ready.”
Knee to know basis
Operation Kemba kicked off Sunday with the necessary restrictions for someone who not only hasn’t played since the Orlando bubble, but who missed the first 11 games of the season in an attempt to strengthen his knee.
“I think we’re looking at 20, 20-ish, right around there,” Stevens said of Walker’s initial minutes restriction, with the point guard actually logging 20 minutes in his debut against the Knicks Sunday.
“We’re not asking him to be anything other than Kemba Walker,” said the Celtics coach. “Just go out and obviously he’s excited to play. He’s ready to play. They’ve put in a lot of work to get to this point and we’re looking forward to having him out there.”
Of immediate concern was the actual lack of team-wide practice available to Walker in his final week before activation. Due to the team’s string of postponements last week — three straight, to be exact — Walker was only able to take part in one full team practice, with limited participants available.
Standing firm
Stevens was asked about the Celtics’ hold on the best record in the Eastern Conference, before their loss to the Knicks dropped them into a second-place tie with Indiana, behind Milwaukee.
His response was telling.
“That’s meaningless, 11 games in, where you are in the conference,” he said. “I mean, that can flip in one week. You can be out of the top 10 pretty easily. We’re just trying to get better. The reality is we haven’t been any version of a top team from a statistical standpoint. But we’re 4-2 in close games, so the difference between heading into last Friday night 5-5 and 7-3 is just flipping a couple of close games. We have to be better. We have to get a lot better in a lot of ways. But, you know, where you stand right now, 11 games in, is meaningless.”