Celtics guard Jaylen Brown will miss at least a week with a hamstring strain. Marta Lavandier/Associated Press
The Celtics will be without Jaylen Brown for at least one-to-two weeks because of the hamstring strain, Boston Coach Ime Udoka said after practice Monday. That’s all the Celtics know at this point, Udoka said, as he added “we’ll know more in a week or two.”
Boston, at 4-6, will need to pick up some wins without one of its most important players.
“He’s had it a few times,” Udoka said. “He knows his body pretty well, and he said it didn’t feel terrible but he did feel it. Obviously the tightness kept him out of the rest of the Miami game and (in Dallas), so it was something he had to get looked at. The strain showed a week or two, and he knew something. He was being overly-cautious himself because of his past history.”
Brown suffered the hamstring injury in Thursday’s win over Miami in the final play of the third quarter. He had to retreat back to the locker room, where he missed the rest of the game. Brown also sat in the loss to Dallas on Saturday as he returned to Boston to get further testing.
“We’ll know more in a week or two, but right now he’s out for a week or two,” Udoka said. “That’s a broad timeline.”
CAVALIERS: Guard Collin Sexton will be sidelined indefinitely after suffering a knee injury on Sunday in a win over the New York Knicks.
Sexton got hurt in the second quarter of Cleveland’s 126-109 victory, which pushed the surprising Cavs to 7-4 this season.
The team said Sexton has a meniscus tear in his knee, which will require additional testing and evaluation. The Cavs did not say anything about surgery, and that Sexton’s status will updated accordingly.
A first-round draft pick in 2018, Sexton is averaging 16 points and 3.3 rebounds in 28.7 minutes per game. The 22-year-old averaged 24.3 points in 60 games for Cleveland last season.
BUCKS: President Joe Biden welcomed the NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks to the White House, praising team members not just for their achievements on the court, but also for their efforts to promote coronavirus vaccinations and for speaking out after the 2020 police shooting of Jacob Blake sparked protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The Bucks were the first NBA champions to visit the White House in nearly five years, ending a Donald Trump-era hiatus.
“You took a stand for justice and peace in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and you’ve gotten people engaged,” Biden said. The NBA postponed games in 2020 after the Bucks announced they would not participate in Game 5 of a first-round playoff series as they sought to shed light on what they said were racial injustices facing African-American communities.
The Bucks, led by Giannis Antetokounmpo, seemed genuinely excited to get back to the tradition of NBA champs visiting the White House. Antetokounmpo even posted a video on social media of him practicing his greeting for the president.
Antetokounmpo helped the Bucks end a 50-year drought, bringing home an NBA championship for the first time since Lew Alcindor (the Hall of Famer who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after converting to Islam) and Oscar Robertson led the team.
The sitting president, regardless of party, often honors major league and some college sports champions with a White House ceremony, typically nonpartisan affairs in which the commander in chief pays tribute to the champs’ prowess, poses for photos and comes away with a team jersey.
The last NBA team to visit the White House was the Cleveland Cavaliers, just days after Trump was elected president and while Barack Obama was still in office.
Trump preemptively disinvited the Golden State Warriors in 2017 after team’s biggest star, Steph Curry, told reporters he planned to vote no when the players came together to decide whether to visit the White House.
The next year Trump said no invitation was coming to the NBA champs before the playoffs even ended as the finals pitted Curry’s Warriors against the LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers. James was an outspoken critic of Trump.
The Toronto Raptors visited Canada’s parliament after winning the 2019 NBA finals but players made clear they were not interested in a White House visit. The 2020 championship won by the Los Angeles Lakers, also led by James, occurred when the White House had paused such visits because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump also disinvited the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles, the 2018 Super Bowl champs, after several players said they would not attend a White House celebration with Trump.
Trump was fiercely critical of NFL players who kneeled during the National Anthem as part of an effort to spotlight the issue of police brutality impacting Black men and women.
MONDAY’S GAMES
KNICKS 103, 76ERS 96: Julius Randle scored 31 points, including eight straight during a key fourth-quarter stretch, to lead New York at Philadelphia.
Philadelphia was without four-time All-Star Joel Embiid and three others due to the NBA’s health and safety protocols, which are for players who have tested positive for COVID-19 or been in close contact with someone who’s tested positive.
RJ Barrett added 15 points for the Knicks, who won their second in the last five. Randle also had 12 rebounds.
Andre Drummond started in place of Embiid, and had 14 points and 25 rebounds. Furkan Korkmaz added 19 points for Philadelphia, which had a six-game win streak snapped.
The Knicks led by as many as 19 points in the first half and looked on their way to a blowout, but Philadelphia used a 25-14 third quarter to pull within 72-69 entering the fourth. The 76ers got within one on multiple occasions in the final period, the last on a 3-pointer by Georges Niang with 5:01 left that made it 89-88.
Then Randle took over. He converted a driving layup and then a pair of 3-pointers, the second giving the Knicks a 97-91 lead with 2:54 left. New York took a comfortable 100-91 lead on Kemba Walker’s three-point play with 2:19 left.
ESPN, citing sources, reported earlier Monday that Embiid tested positive for COVID-19. Neither the 76ers nor Coach Doc Rivers would confirm a positive test.
BULLS 118, NETS 95: DeMar DeRozan scored 28 points, Zach LaVine added 24 and Chicago used a 42-point fourth quarter to pull away from visiting Brooklyn.
Rookie Ayo Dosumnu had 15 points and played a key role in the late rally as Chicago snapped a two-game losing streak.
Kevin Durant, who entered as the NBA’s leading scorer with a 28.6 average, had 38 points but Brooklyn had its five-game winning streak snapped. LaMarcus Aldridge added 19.
MAVERICKS 108, PELICANS 92: Luka Doncic scored 25 points, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jalen Brunson added 17 apiece and Dallas overcame a sluggish start to win at home.
GRIZZLIES 125, TIMBERWOLVES 118: Ja Morant scored 33 points and Brandon Clarke had 20 points and nine rebounds as Memphis put together a furious fourth-quarter rally before defeating visiting Minnesota in overtime.
Memphis trailed by as many as 16 with 7:30 left in regulation but a 21-4 rally erased Minnesota’s advantage. The Timberwolves forced OT with a 39-foot 3-pointer banked in by Karl-Anthony Towns as regulation expired.
But Memphis pulled away in the extra period, keyed by a rebound by Clarke with 22.7 seconds left.
De’Anthony Melton had 19 points for the Grizzlies, Jaren Jackson Jr. had 14 and Kyle Anderson and Desmond Bane added 12 each.
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