Joining the long-term members of the Boston Celtics’ injury report – Robert Williams and Danilo Gallinari – is Malcom Brogdon, who’s questionable for tomorrow night’s game against the Washington Wizards. He’s apparently experiencing back stiffness, the team announced.
#NEBHInjuryReport for tomorrow vs. Washington:
Malcolm Brogdon (right low back stiffness) – QUESTIONABLE
Danilo Gallinari (left knee ACL repair) – OUT
Robert Williams (left knee surgery) – OUT— Boston Celtics (@celtics) October 29, 2022
This doesn’t appear to be a serious, long-term issue for Brogdon, but it is interesting that he’s the second Celtic to appear on the injury report for back stiffness. Al Horford recently missed the game against the Orlando Magic with low back stiffness.
Washington is off to a solid start to the season at 3-2, so this isn’t going to be a cakewalk that the Celtics can just walk into. With an explosive offensive guard in Bradley Beal, Boston’s porous defense will be tested once again, especially as Beal now has a decent point guard and some shooters on the wing. The Celtics need to find a way to defend much better than they have this season, so the Wizards game will be an opportunity to course correct.
Brogdon has been big off the bench by bringing a sense of poise and by distributing the ball to Boston’s bench shooters. He’s averaging 11.4 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.6 assists on 44/31/91 shooting splits. However, he was also responsible from some of the defensive lapses last night against the Cleveland Cavaliers, and his inability to box out and help out on the boards (not just him, but a lot of people) really hurt against a long Cleveland team. It may be that the low back stiffness contributed to some of his deficiencies.
Thankfully, the Celtics are deep at guard, so if Brogdon does need to take the night off, Derrick White, Marcus Smart and Payton Pritchard is more than enough to keep the ship afloat in his absence.
The 3-2 Boston Celtics will challenge the 3-2 Washington Wizards tomorrow night at 6 p.m. ET.
