The Boston Celtics really are missing Kemba Walker three games into their 2020-21 campaign.
The team has fallen to 1-3 after playing three of the best teams in the NBA's Eastern Conference without their starting point guard, and his offensive contributions surely are missed.
Walker has been out as he rehabilitates the left knee that has ailed him for some time now, and received a stem-cell injection in the offseason. And though they need him, the Celtics have no intentions of rushing him back before he's ready.
Head coach Brad Stevens on Tuesday provided an update on Walker's timetable before Boston's game against the Indiana Pacers.
Well, kind of.
"No update. No update that I've received other than he is progressing," Stevens told reporters in his media availability.
"I think we'll have more of a big picture update here in the next week sometime, as we thought, right around the turn of the new year. He won't be back any time soon, certainly, you know we're hopeful to get him back as soon as possible but we want to make sure when we do it's for good. So I think that that's the most critical thing from our standpoint. You can see how we miss him and you know, it's funny when we go back and put together clips of things that maybe we haven't covered or things that we'd like to do differently, he's in all of them. So we've got to figure out a way to be the best version of ourselves until he gets back and I think that starts with being a little better defensively and getting as good of shots as we can."
When Walker does return, he'll be on a minutes restriction similar to the one he had in the NBA bubble.
