I’m not an athlete but I”ve sprained my ankle before and it’s pretty painful. The Celtics however showed very little sympathy for Courtney Lee when he sprained his ankle during the Celtics loss to the Dallas Mavericks last night. Read more after the jump.
With under two minutes to play in Dallas on Friday, the Celtics had cut a 12-point fourth quarter deficit down to just five. But an unfortunately-timed injury to Courtney Lee allowed the Mavericks a possession that ended with a wide-open three-pointer from O.J. Mayo, which pushed the lead back to eight and essentially sealed the victory for Dallas.
Lee was down for quite some time, after suffering an ankle sprain that required him to be carried off the floor by two of his teammates.
That’s as far as the sympathy went, however, as both Doc Rivers and Jason Terry weren’t exactly pleased that Lee’s injury prevented him from competing on that critical possession.
“I was hoping he could get up because we needed him to get up,” Rivers said, via A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com. “It was the damnedest play. You’re making a run, you’re down five and you got a guy laying on the floor. It felt like it took 40 seconds.”
Terry was far more critical, and his remarks can be seen near the end of the video clip above.
“Get your ass up,” was Terry’s thought. “If your bone ain’t sticking out of there, I don’t know. I don’t know how he’s feeling right now, but I mean, we were trying to win the game.”
Lee said afterward that the pain had subsided, to the point where he was hopeful he may even be able to play in his team’s very next game. That won’t go very far in helping his case with Rivers or Terry, who obviously weren’t happy with Lee for staying down so long with the game hanging in the balance.
