DeMarre Carroll questionable for Game 2, MRI shows no structural damage to left knee
As they returned to work after conceding home-court advantage to the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the Atlanta Hawks got some good news on Thursday morning. The non-contact knee injury that starting small forward DeMarre Carroll suffered during the fourth quarter isn’t as bad as many feared:
That’s awfully good news for the 29-year-old Carroll, who hit the floor in apparent agony with just over five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter of Game 1 after trying to make a move around Cleveland defender Iman Shumpert:
Carroll couldn’t put any weight on his left leg as he was helped off the court and back to the locker room, and left the arena on crutches, leading many to fear the worst. It’s incredibly heartening, then, to learn that the 29-year-old suffered no structural damage on the play.
DeMarre Carroll is at Philips Arena and walking without crutches.
— Chris Vivlamore (@CVivlamoreAJC) May 21, 2015
“No structural damage” and “day-to-day” are wonderful outcomes for the 29-year-old Carroll, who’s poised to enter unrestricted free agency this summer coming off the best season of his pro career, and is expected to receive significant interest from teams in need of a top-flight perimeter defender who can also knock down 3-point shots at an above-league-average clip.
The man himself sure seemed grateful when he took to Instagram on Thursday morning:
“THANK YOU GOD!!!” Carroll wrote in the caption of his Instagram post, adding the hashtag “#BLESSED” for good measure.
Now that the worst-case scenario’s been ruled out, Carroll and the Hawks will turn their attention to doing everything in their power to getting “The Junkyard Dog” back on the court as quickly as possible. He’s listed as questionable for Game 2, and the longer he’s absent, the fewer options Atlanta head coach Mike Budenholzer has for guarding Cavaliers superstar LeBron James … especially without veteran swingman Thabo Sefolosha, whose season ended in April when he allegedly suffered a broken right fibula and torn ligaments while in custody of the New York Police Department following his arrest with teammate Pero Antic at a Manhattan nightclub on the night Indiana Pacers forward Chris Copeland was stabbed. The National Basketball Players Association is investigating the circumstances Sefolosha suffering the injury.
With Carroll gone on Wednesday, Budenholzer turned primarily to Paul Millsap to guard James, and while the All-Star’s got the strength to body up LeBron and more quickness than many of his brethren at the power forward position, that’s an awfully tough cover for the Atlanta big man. Behind Millsap, as my colleague Eric Freeman noted after Game 1, the Hawks will be forced to rely more heavily on reserve Kent Bazemore, already playing an outsized role due to the absence of Sefolosha, and perhaps mothballed backup Mike Scott, a dicey-at-best defender whose game suffered enough after a late-season broken toe that he’s fallen out of Coach Bud’s rotation entirely.
Simply put, the Hawks really don’t have any credible secondary options for defending James one-on-one if Carroll can’t go; there’s no Jimmy Butler behind Luol Deng here, no Lance Stephenson behind Paul George, no Danny Green or Boris Diaw behind Kawhi Leonard. With Atlanta already in a 1-0 hole and without home-court advantage, the Hawks have to figure out how to get back on the good foot immediately, starting with Friday’s Game 2.
For the time being, learning that Carroll’s “questionable” rather than “out” seems like a pretty good place to start.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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