Speculation was building that Rajon Rondo would tough out his thumb fracture and play tonight in Game 5.
Forget that idea. Rondo squashed it all at his media gathering this morning:
“I’m not playing,” Rondo said.
Despite coach Fred Hoiberg calling Rondo’s return a “longshot” on Tuesday, Rondo’s potential availability gained momentum because he scrimmaged in Chicago after Hoiberg made his comments and then worked out when the team arrived here Tuesday night.
But Rondo said he still has done little with his right hand and used both sessions mostly for conditioning purposes and for left-handed floaters.
“I got an X-ray (Tuesday). The thumb is still the same. It’s still broke,” Rondo said. “I knew last week it wasn’t going to be fixed in a week. My finger is broken.
“I don’t know if people misunderstood what the cast was for. I had a torn ligament in my wrist so that was the purpose of the cast. My thumb and my cast were two different things.”
After watching video of him at practice yesterday, I knew Rondo couldn’t play.
Rajon added that a numbing shot isn’t an option and that he doesn’t want “to hurt my teammates trying to be a hero and be 65 percent.”
The Celtics (-8) have a 67% probability of winning tonight.
[protected-iframe id=”4535f8b7ca3bc202993f92423eea3f67-114320562-54426440″ info=”https://numberfire.com/external/widgets/nba/game-projections/Boston-Celtics” width=”600″ height=”500″]Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
