Danny Ainge is ‘not too concerned’ about player health going forward

Despite an unexpected resurgence of the ‘Hospital Celtics’ this week, Boston team president Danny Ainge isn’t especially worried about his team’s health.

Boston Celtics team president made his weekly appearance on Toucher and Rich Thursday morning, and spoke at length on the surprise return of the Hospital Celtics.

Boston had been trending towards returning to full health after starting point guard Kemba Walker had been cleared to play on a balky knee that had kept him out from the 2020 NBA All-Star Game to the Mar. 3 overtime loss to the Brooklyn Nets.

Second-year reserve center Robert Williams III was about to return from a severely bruised hip that had him out since early December as well. Then, things started to go sideways in the health department.

Guard Marcus Smart and forward Jayson Tatum came down with a bug, and forward Gordon Hayward hyperextended his knee against Brooklyn. In the same game, shooting guard Jaylen Brown pulled his right hamstring.

Still, Ainge is unfazed.

“I’m not too concerned about any one player, I think everybody’s going to be fine within a week-ish or less,” he told the hosts. “But, I’m not really sure what the update is today.”

When asked specifically about Brown and Hayward, Ainge replied about the former first.

“Jaylen has a strained hamstring, and those just are a little bit scary to have. We don’t really want to mess around with it. He’s had that before years ago in the playoffs, and came right back and played. But, we’ll probably give him some time off and make sure he’s healthy.”

Regarding the Butler product, Ainge said, “Gordon had a hyperextended knee-type situation, and got bumped into the knee,” tactfully omitting it was teammate Daniel Theis who accidentally collided with the Indiana native.

“I think he’s feeling better yesterday, but I’m not really ready [or] prepared to tell you when he’s going to be back,” added Ainge, “but I think he’s going to be fine.”

As far as injuries go, while it’s no fun being down several key players just as Boston starts to dig in to the stretch run in the battle for the East’s second seed, they are all of a very short-term and hopefully minor nature.

Ainge is correct in his assessment that there isn’t much cause for concern now, as these are the types of problems it’s best to proceed cautiously with in order to avoid a recurrence in the postseason.

Don’t be terribly surprised if Brown in particular gets longer than a week off to let his hamstring heal completely.

The toughest remaining games in the schedule sit right across this coming week during which the Cal-Berkeley product will be out, with games against the Utah Jazz, Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers waiting.

In fact, with the earliest game Brown could return for the Mar. 12 road game against the Milwaukee Bucks, the rest of the schedule is almost devoid of teams with winning records.

In fact, with only two remaining games with the Miami Heat and one each with the Bucks, Pacers and Toronto Raptors, it won’t surprise to Hayward sit as well against his former team on Friday as well — if not longer.

The schedule will have plenty of nights for players to play limited minutes and rest when called for in order to gear up for the postseason without sacrificing too much risk at losing the two seed to the Raptors as a result.

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