Giannis Antetokounmpo played in just his fourth game since January tonight as the Bucks took on the Suns. He scored 22 points, but the game was not without its scares as the star seemed to tweak something in his legs while going for a dunk.
After the game, head coach Doc Rivers spoke about the injury, saying it wasn’t nearly as bad as it appeared.
“I was scared,” he said, per The Athletic’s Eric Nehm (Twitter link). “The one time he went down in the first half, he said he was fine, he just tripped over a guy’s foot, so there was no injury. And then he got hit in the groin. And I’m thinking that’s a calf, the way he went down… and then he was just winded.”
Antetokounmpo ended up playing 32 minutes in the loss, his highest minutes total since January 23.
We have more injury news from around the league:
Rivers also spoke on Taurean Prince*‘s surprising return to play for the Bucks tonight, per Nehm (via Twitter). “It’s cool because, honestly, I didn’t think he’d play this year*,” he said. “The fact that he’s worked the way he’s worked to get back on the floor, it’s just all about him and who he is. It really is. It’s really a cool thing*.” Rivers went on to elucidate how important Prince’s presence was throughout the season, injury or no. “When he got injured, we grabbed him and told him, welcome to the coaching staff because that’s basically what he was gonna be this year,” the coach said. “*And early on, it did look like that. He was in a brace, couldn’t really do anything. And then as his neck started healing, hope came.”
Trae Young missed the Wizards‘ game against the Heat tonight, which turned out to be a historic contest, due to knee injury management, the team tweeted. Young recently returned to play for Washington after speculation that he would miss the rest of the season following his trade from the Hawks. He has yet to play over 20 minutes for Washington.
Josh Hart is being listed as questionable for the Knicks‘ game against the Jazz on Wednesday due to left knee soreness, Steve Popper notes (Twitter link). Hart has suited up for the last 15 Knicks games, and while he’s averaging just 28.7 minutes per game, he is coming off one of his heaviest workloads of the season, playing 36.5 minutes in the loss to the Clippers.