The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Celtics’ Irving needs surgery, won’t return
Guard has been out since March 11; Cavs’ Lue back on bench.
The Boston Celtics have spent most of the season adjusting on the fly. Now they will have to go through the playoffs without Kyrie Irving.
The star point guard will need surgery on his left knee and is done for season. The team on Thursday put his recovery time at four to five months. Irving hasn’t played since March 11 and says he won’t dwell on what might have been.
“The hardest thing to do sometimes is accept the uncontrollable things life throws at you,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “It’s simply a test of your perseverance and will, to be present, even in the wake of what’s going on.”
In the upcoming surgery, two screws will be removed. They were implanted after Irving’s patellar fracture during the 2015 NBA Finals. Irving recently developed an infection at the site of the screws, and now they must be taken out.
Following his original procedure last month, the team had said the knee was structurally sound and the kneecap healed, but the wire had been putting pressure on the knee.
This is Irving’s first season in Boston after he demanded to be traded from Cleveland. And the player he was dealt for, Isaiah Thomas, is out for the year following hip surgery.
This latest news is a blow to a Celtics team that had been playing well despite a run of recent injuries to key players. Boston will likely enter the playoffs as the No. 2 seed behind Toronto.
In addition to Irving, Marcus Smart is sidelined following right thumb surgery and Daniel Theis is out for the season after left knee surgery. And Gordon Hayward is not expected back as he recovers from his gruesome ankle injury in the season opener.
Cavaliers: Tyronn Lue is returning to work humbled, changed and with a new perspective. Cleveland’s 40-yearold coach has been rewired by a health scare.
Lue was expected back on the sidelines Thursday night to lead the Cavaliers following a medical absence after experiencing “piercing” chest pains during two games this season. Looking rested and relaxed, he described his ordeal in some detail for the first time following shootaround at the team’s practice facility.
Lue, who guided the Cavs to an NBA title in 2016, said he had been bothered by chest pains for more than a year, but when they worsened during a March 17 game in Chicago, he realized it was time to step away and get help.
“It’s just the chest pains are very piercing, like, through the chest and around the rib area. So, it feels like you’re having a heart attack,” he said. “The doctor said, ‘You might die, but it won’t be from your heart.’ So, that was a good thing to hear that my heart’s in good shape. But it’s just like electricity shooting through your body, through your chest area.”
Lue has changed his diet, is exercising more frequently and taking medication to control the symptoms that forced him to re-examine his life.
“We get so wrapped up in the game of basketball I think we kind of forget about everything else,” Lue said. “This was the first time in 20 years where I really just had a chance to focus on me and get myself right and he reminded of that.
Mavericks: Dirk Nowitzki’s 20th season is over a few games early after the Dallas star had surgery on his left ankle.
Now the question is whether the 7-foot German will play as a 40-year-old after saying he intends to return for a 21st season, all with the Mavericks. Nowitzki could be the first to play that long with one franchise.