Tuesday November 25 2008 - 4:30pm Eastern
Jermaine O’Neal admitted on Tuesday afternoon that his knee brace likely saved his season.
“The good thing about this brace is that I felt the part that keeps the knee stable on the sides - the two cushion parts - I felt it grinding into my knee as I was going down,” said O’Neal. “If that part isn’t there, then I probably tear every ligament in my knee.”
“We talked about it - the training staff and the doctors - and I probably would have been done for the year if I didn’t have the brace on.”
And the fact that O’Neal was even wearing the brace at that point may be a minor miracle in itself. Through the opening 12 games of the season - before he was hurt on Friday night - O’Neal has ripped off the knee brace a number of times and thrown it to the sidelines. Not only have the straps been coming loose too often (he’s constantly re-adjusting them), but it seems like the big man may not be comfortable with the apparatus. In fact, on Friday night against New Jersey, he played most of the 3RD quarter without the brace before putting it back on before the 4TH quarter began.
“God is good because I took the brace off - the strap kept coming off - so I switched braces,” said O’Neal. “They brought (the new one) out to me and I looked at the brace for at least 50 straight seconds; just looked at it. I wasn’t going to put it on. And I said ‘Ya know what, I’m gonna put it on’.”
“As soon as I got back into the game, I hurt my knee.”
O’Neal said the knee is doing fine right now. He even pulled the cuff of his pants up to show the knee off to the TV cameras; to show that there was no real swelling present. And there wasn’t. But the 6-time All Star did admit that his ankle hurts more than anything else. J.O. figures he tweaked the ankle on Sunday - against Boston - when he landed awkwardly on the foot of either Kendrick Perkins or Glen Davis. The twisting of the ankle and the nasty fall to the floor re-aggravated the knee.
At this point, O’Neal thinks the ankle is causing him more problems than the knee. He said he would have practised on Tuesday had it not been for the sore ankle. He said he could have practised on the knee. But he wasn’t prepared to say - yet - whether he’ll be able to suit up against the Charlotte Bobcats or not.
To hear more on O’Neal and how he got hurt, how he’s feeling now, etc. have a listen to the audio file below and hear from the man himself!
E. Smith
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the raptors couldn’t possibly be dumb enough to let him play tomorrow could they? he needs to rest for at least tomorrow’s game and maybe friday as well.
- daveGood to hear that it’s not too serious. That being said, I would imagine that it’d be better to err on the side of caution and keep him out of Wednesday’s game.
Theoretically, it’s a game that the Raps should win even without JO (although clearly nothing is for certain right now) so why not give him and his knee/ankle some rest until at least Friday.
Let’s get this thing turned around! :)
- PatrickJ.O is the man, only if the rest of the players not named Bosh would be hungry to play like that.
- D12great news about JO.
Hey Eric,
- jayDo you think BC has Sam Mitchell on a short leash? It looks like the raptors have become one of the most predictable teams on offense and their defense is definitely lacking. What are you thoughts?
This trade for O’Neal is starting to look suspect, don’t you think .. He’s getting $21 million and he’s got a knee that could disable him on any play ..looks like we have to hold our breath all season every time O’Neal makes a play .
- Chas CalzHow about Calderon 40/40 on fts .. I think record is 87 by Calvin Murphy ..not sure
I have to totally agree that JO should not play today and just give it a few more days rest. With the Bobcats weak front court there is no way he could resist going all out defending. We just can’t affortd the risk at this point in the season.
Hey Eric, you want another indication that Sam just isn’t getting it recently?
Sam in interview on Raptors.com:
“Other than the fourth quarter of the Jersey game and the first, third and fourth quarter against Boston, we’ve only had four bad quarters of basketball in our last two games.”
Four Q of bad defense in the last two games is 1/2 of each game with the old math Sam :-)
Go Raps. Let’s turn this around before we head out west.
On another note,
Raps with Sam Mitchell
Jays with JP
and now the Leafs with Brian Burke
Lots of great quotes and nothing but abrasive personalities among them.
What did TO fans do to deserve this???
- Gary