Doc Rivers appeared on WEEI's The Dennis and Callahan Morning Show earlier this morning and spoke on a number of topics, including Kevin Garnett, who injured his right leg last night. As expected he did not really have any new information on Garnett's status, but here's what he said:
"Well, I can't tell you much more than what you know already. He hurt his knee last night, or his leg, and they're going to do more tests today. I think he'll do an MRI. We do think it's muscle-related, we don't think it has anything to do with the knee, but we don't know. So we're just going to wait and see."
At the tail end of the interview, Doc was asked when he expects to learn more about Garnett's injury:
"I'll know by the end of the day. I think we're in good shape here, but you just never know, and I'm just going to wait for the MRI. But I should know by mid-afternoon, or sometime today."
On the current state of Rajon Rondo:
"Rondo's day-to-day, I don't know if we'll see him tomorrow or not, but he's getting close. So far each time he's worked out there's been some swelling, and that's a concern, so we're going to take it slow and we're not going to push him back. We're just going to wait until he's ready to play."
Hit the jump for what Doc had to say regarding the immediate future of the team's rotation (given that Garnett will most likely miss a few games coming up) and reaction to the interview.
On the immediate future of the rotation:
"It'll be a shorter rotation, clearly. We don't have a lot of bigs left. Right now we would probably start (Glen Davis) with (Shaquille O'Neal), and then you've got (Jermaine O'Neal) coming off the bench, and from there you may use Luke (Harangody), you may go with a smaller lineup with Marquis (Daniels). As a staff, we really haven't talked about it much what we would do."
CelticsBlog's Take
Well clearly nothing is set in stone yet, and team officials appear to still be in the speculative stage right now. Obviously in the first quote Doc says Garnett hurt the knee, but later, in the same answer said the club doesn't think it has anything to do with the knee and I'd like to think he merely misspoke originally by mentioning the knee, as he immediately corrected himself and said Garnett actually hurt his leg.
I was comforted, slightly, by Doc saying, "I think we're in good shape here." Of course, he followed that up with, "but you just never know", which to me says they really do not have a fully accurate idea of what exactly they are dealing with right now. Or maybe they do, and just aren't sharing. Overall, I think there is cause for optimism right now, because, even though we probably cannot rule out the knee 150% just yet (again, because of all the "we don't knows"), the Celtics higher-ups are indicating that the issue lies elsewhere.
It sounds like, as Doc mentioned, team officials will have a better idea of what the injury is later this afternoon after Garnett undergoes an MRI. We'll have the latest news here on CelticsBlog as soon as it becomes available.