The Boston Celtics are almost saved.
This is not an exaggeration.
Jae Crowder has been sidelined since he suffered a high right ankle sprain against the Houston Rockets on March 11. Though the Celtics are playing .500 basketball during his absence, they need the combination of shooting and wing defense he provides.
And it sounds like they’re going to get it sometime soon, per Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe:
Brad Stevens says Jae Crowder will try to practice in Portland on Wednesday.
— Adam Himmelsbach (@AdamHimmelsbach) March 28, 2016
The Celtics outscore opponents by 5.3 points per 100 possessions when Crowder is on the floor. That’s the second highest net rating among Boston’s rotation players, behind only Kelly Olynyk, and it’s the equivalent of the team ranking fifth overall in point differential. Likewise, Crowder and Olynyk are the only Celtics players to have positive box plus-minus scores—which measure how much better per 100 possessions the average team is with a given player on the floor—on both ends of the hardwood.
If Jae Crowder returns to practice Wednesday, you have to assume there’s a chance he plays Thursday against the Portland Trail Blazers. The Celtics have slipped from third in the Eastern Conference to fourth during his absence, and they have just eight contests left to make up the one-game gap separating them from the Atlanta Hawwks.
More than that, they Celtics should just want him on the court as well in advance of the playoffs as possible. They can’t afford to have him trying to find his game legs in the first round of the postseason. They need the most polished version of Jae Crowder available—the one that should have been an All-Star and has enabled them to reach the point of fringe conference contention despite the glaring absence of a universally accepted megastar.
