MILWAUKEE (AP) — Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo thinks he will be out for an extended period after hurting his right calf again after a similar injury caused him to miss eight games earlier this season.
Antetokounmpo had his right calf wrapped in the first half of a 102-100 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Friday night. He didn’t appear comfortable the rest of the night and left for good with 34 seconds remaining.
“At the end, I could not move no more, 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 straining the same calf last month.
“After the MRI, they will tell me probably I popped something in my calf, or in my soleus or something, probably give me a protocol of four to six weeks I’ll be out,” Antetokounmpo said. “This is from my experience being around the NBA. After that, I’m going to work my butt off to come back. That will probably be end of February, beginning of March.”
Bucks coach Doc Rivers was similarly pessimistic.
“I don’t think it looks great, honestly,” he said. “This calf keeps coming up and it’s concerning. I’m not a doctor, but I’m smart enough to know that his calf keeps bothering him. There’s something that is there. It keeps happening. That’s troublesome for all of us.”
Antetokounmpo’s earlier calf injury occurred on Dec. 3. He returned to action Dec. 27, but had been on a minutes restriction since.
This latest injury puts the Bucks’ hopes of a 10th straight playoff berth in serious jeopardy. The Bucks (18-26) are 11th in the Eastern Conference standings and have lost five of their last six games.
Milwaukee has gone just 3-11 in games Antetokounmpo has missed this season. Antetokounmpo said he would have exited Friday’s game as soon as the calf issue arose if the Bucks had a significantly better record.
He instead stayed in the game and ended up with 22 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists.
“I don’t like to quit,” Antetokounmpo said. “I felt like I couldn’t explode. I could jog. I couldn’t get on my toes, so I was kind of jogging on my heel the majority of the game. I didn’t have the same explosiveness, but I still felt like I could help. At the end, when it popped, 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 sitting out the second half with a right hamstring strain.
Gordon missed 19 games after straining that hamstring in November.
“He’s optimistic it’s not as bad as it was, the last one, but we don’t know until we get it actually tested,” coach David Adelman said.
Gordon was in the starting lineup Friday one night after playing 33 minutes in a 107-97 win at Washington. Adelman said a stress test indicated Gordon had responded well enough to get back in the starting lineup.
“They look at his body and how it responded to yesterday,” Adelman said. “The response was good. Let’s just be honest, this is not an exact science. These injuries, they can come back at any time.”
The Nuggets already are without three-time MVP Nikola Jokic, who last played Dec. 29 as he deals 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 last two weeks
Other players missing for Denver on Friday included Jamal Murray (inflammation of right hamstring and left hip), Peyton Watson (left ankle sprain and right ankle strain) and Jonas Valanciunas (right calf strain).
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