Robert Williams, backbone of the NBA’s leading defense and one of the league’s great young rim protectors, is about to miss some time.
The Celtics officially listed the Celtics center as out with a torn lateral meniscus in his left knee. he suffered the injury in the third quarter of Sunday’s win over Minnesota. The injury is known to take weeks for recovery. Chicago point guard Lonzo Ball had surgery on Jan. 26 for the same injury. He was initially expected to return in six to eight weeks, but may now miss the playoffs.
At the time, coach Ime Udoka said that Williams was in significant pain after limping off the floor.
“Don’t know exactly what happened,” said Udoka. “He said it wasn’t even a specific play that he remembers, but came out of the game, had some pain, obviously went back to get checked out and was in quite a bit of pain, and he’ll get scanned in the morning and we’ll know then.
“It’s too early. He got looked at by the doctors, but until the scan comes back in the morning, we’ll know more. But, like I said, quite a bit of pain on the lateral side and nothing more than that.”
Williams’ ability to chase down shots everywhere from the paint out to the 3-point arc has intimidated opponents since the Celtics began their run on first place in the Eastern Conference. Indeed, for all of the heroics of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, first place likely wasn’t possible without Williams.
His loss blows a hole in the Celtics big man rotation, placing more of a load on 36-year-old Al Horford and raising the importance of Daniel Theis in the backup role. Grant Williams, who has gamely handled the challenges of Nikola Jokic and Karl-Anthony Towns recently, probably has more “small ball big” minutes in his future as well.
