It didn’t look good for Al Horford and his Atlanta Hawks when the All Star big man went down during the first quarter of Wednesday’s game at Indiana. It looked pretty bad actually. Reports released by the Hawks medical staff today don’t look good either, as the team has announced that arguably their best player will be set to miss upwards of four months recovering from a torn pectoral muscle suffered on that play.
This according to the AP:
The team announced Thursday that Horford tore his left pectoral muscle in the first quarter of Wednesday night’s game at Indiana. The injury will likely require surgery, stunning a team that has made the playoffs four years in a row and is off to a solid start with wins over Miami and Chicago in the early going.
Horford, a two-time All-Star, could be out as long as four months, which would take his rehab deep into the playoffs — should the Hawks make it that far. He will get a second opinion before making the final decision to undergo surgery, but even the most optimistic projection would keep him out until mid-April.
The Hawks final regular-season game is April 26.
If you couldn’t do the math in your head, four months from today is April 12th. That scenario would give Horford about two weeks I suppose to get himself ready for playoff basketball assuming the Hawks sneak in.
I’m going to say right now they still have a shot at that 8th seed in the Eastern Conference even without Horford. It will be much tougher though, obviously.
So far this year Horford was averaging 12 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists and just over 1 blocked shot per game while shooting 55% from the floor.
