Well, this doesn’t look pretty.
Late in the second quarter of the Denver Nuggets’ eventual win over the Dallas Mavericks, Danilo Gallinari took Dirk Nowitzki off the dribble with his left hand when suddenly, what seemed like an open path to the basket turned into a potentially season-ending injury.
Gallo’s left knee buckled in toward the right, he lost the ball and wound up on the ground wincing (and howling) in pain. Again, this doesn’t look pretty. It was hideous. Just like the initial diagnosis.
Per Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, Gallinari will undergo an MRI, but it’s “likely” he tore his ACL.
Initial exam suggests likely torn ACL for Denver’s Danilo Gallinari, source tells Y! “Ligament was loose,” source says. MRI Friday.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) April 5, 2013
If this is indeed the case, Gallo’s season would effectively be over (via Woj):
After crumbling to the court and needing to be carried to the locker room, an initial examination of Denver Nuggets forward Danilo Gallinari suggested a season-ending tear of the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, league sources told Yahoo! Sports on Thursday night.
“The doctor indicated that the ligament was loose,” one source told Yahoo! Sports. “They expect that it’s a torn ACL.”
To call this injury devastating doesn’t even begin to describe it. Not only is Gallo averaging the second-most points per game (16.3) on the Nuggets, but with Ty Lawson banged up, he was essentially their go-to scorer. Now it seems Denver will have to carry on without both for the time being.
This is also crippling news for a Nuggets faction that has climbed to third in the Western Conference. They hold a two-game lead over the Los Angeles Clippers and have a half-game edge on the Memphis Grizzlies with six contests play. Maintaining their current position to close out the year sans Gallo and Lawson will be difficult, if not impossible.
The importance of that third seed cannot be underestimated either. It ensures the Nuggets a first-round matchup against either the Houston Rockets or Golden State Warriors, as opposed to the Clippers or the Grizzlies. It would also delay a possible series against the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder or San Antonio Spurs.
Instead of thinking about their postseason positioning, though, the Nuggets are left to worry about the immediate futures of Gallo and Lawson, and the long-term future of the former. Tearing an ACL is no joke. Just look at how long it is still taking Derrick Rose to recover. Depending on the severity of the tear, Gallo could be sidelined for a year or more. There’s also a chance that he won’t return as the player he was prior to the injury.
Which is a shame. Gallo had yet to blossom into a superstar, but his offensive attack has become potent a mixture of jump shots and rim attacks. At 6’10”, he has emerged one of the most versatile scorers in the NBA. And he helped the Nuggets become one of the most dangerous teams in the league.
Here’s to hoping one of the brightest young scorers in the game makes a swift and seamless recovery.
Dan Favale is a firm believer in the three-pointer as well as the notion that defense doesn’t always win championships. His musings can be found at Bleacherreport.com in addition to TheHoopDoctors.com. Follow @danfavale on Twitter for his latest posts and all things NBA.
