Antetokounmpo suffered a bandage on his right calf in the first half of a 102-100 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Friday night. He didn’t seem comfortable the rest of the night and left for good with 34 seconds left.
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“In the end, I couldn’t move anymore, so I had to stop playing,” Antetokounmpo said.
The two-time MVP said he expected to undergo an MRI on Saturday and predicted the results wouldn’t be much different from what he heard after injuring the same calf last month.
“After the MRI, they’ll tell me I probably tore something in my calf, or my soleus or something, they’ll probably give me a protocol of four to six weeks out,” Antetokounmpo said. “This is because of my experience in the NBA. After that, I’m going to work hard to come back. That will probably be at the end of February or beginning of March.”
Bucks coach Doc Rivers was equally pessimistic.
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“Honestly, I don’t think it looks very good,” he said. “This calf keeps coming up and it’s concerning. I’m not a doctor, but I’m smart enough to know that your calf keeps bothering you. There’s something that’s there. It keeps happening. That’s problematic for all of us.”
Antetokounmpo’s previous calf injury occurred on December 3. He returned to action on December 27, but had been on a minutes restriction since then.
This latest injury seriously jeopardizes the Bucks’ hopes of clinching their 10th consecutive playoff berth. The Bucks (18-26) are 11th in the Eastern Conference standings and have lost five of their last six games.
Milwaukee is just 3-11 in games Antetokounmpo has missed this season. Antetokounmpo said he would have left the game as soon as the calf issue arose if the Bucks had a significantly better record.
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Instead, he stayed in the game and finished with 22 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists.
“I don’t like to give up,” Antetokounmpo said. “I felt like I couldn’t explode. I could jog. I couldn’t get on my toes, so I was jogging on my heels most of the game. I didn’t have the same explosiveness, but I still felt like I could help. In the end, when it exploded, I had to get out. I couldn’t walk.”
Antetokounmpo wasn’t the only notable player from Friday’s game to leave with a leg injury. Denver’s Aaron Gordon scored 13 points in the first half before missing the second half with a right hamstring strain.
Gordon missed 19 games after suffering a hamstring strain in November.
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“He’s optimistic that it’s not as bad as the last one was, but we won’t know until we try it,” coach David Adelman said.
Gordon was in the starting lineup Friday night after playing 33 minutes in a 107-97 win at Washington. Adelman said a stress test indicated Gordon had responded well enough to return to the starting lineup.
“They look at his body and how he responded yesterday,” Adelman said. “The response was good. Let’s be honest, this is not an exact science. These injuries can come back at any time.”
The Nuggets are already without three-time MVP Nikola Jokic, who last played on Dec. 29 while dealing with a bone bruise in his left knee. Denver also hasn’t had Cameron Johnson (right knee bone bruise) available all month, and Christian Braun (left ankle sprain) has been out for the past two weeks.
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Other players missing for Denver on Friday were Jamal Murray (right hamstring and left hip inflammation), Peyton Watson (sprained left ankle and strained right ankle) and Jonas Valanciunas (right calf strain).
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NBA AP: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA