WELL SHIT: Marcus Smart And Al Horford Are OUT For Game 1 And Horford Is In Covid Protocols

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GOD DAMMIT. WHY. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING????

The Smart news I don't think should surprise anyone. I had been waiting for that Shams/Woj bomb all day. You don't go from being in a boot for a mid foot sprain to playing 48 hours later. You have to be careful with foot injuries and the last thing we need is Smart pushing himself and then making this injury worse. Hopefully a few more days before Game 2 will do his body good, but it's not like we have a ton of time in between games so this is definitely something to monitor.

The surprise is the Al Horford news. We're still doing health and safety protocols? That's unfortunate. Immediately my brain said "OK, well maybe another day off will help Al" but then that thought quickly left my brain and sadness took over. Playoff Al has been SO GREAT this entire postseason, and now this happens? When the Celts have had their best chance in a decade to make the NBA Finals? I'm sick just thinking about it. 

Then you start to realize that Rob isn't exactly in game shape and has his own injury risks and issues to deal with, and suddenly your frontcourt could primarily be Grant/Theis with what…a little Luke Kornet sprinkled in? Bam can feast on that shit. I'm going to need every single Celtic that touches the floor to make sure they hit the glass. If not, things will get away from them quickly.

My next question is, how long is Al out? Is this something where he could be out of protocols in 2 days? Should we just bank on him missing the first two games if not more? Is this a vaccination thing? Is it a false positive thing? Who the hell knows. All I know is this is NOT what you want to find out just 2.5 hours ahead of tip off. Two extremely important players for this team are out, and nobody knows when we'll see them again. If I wasn't nervous enough already, this just took things up about a billion levels.

If you need some instant spinzone in an effort to prevent you from drinking bleach, I'll remind you that the Hospital Celtics have been great this postseason. They find a way. That's all I got right now considering I just learned this news about 15 seconds ago. Next man up, show the mental toughness we've seen all playoffs and let's go pull off the road win and take homecourt. If guys are going to miss multiple games in this series, do yourself a favor and at least snag homecourt advantage. 

Fuck me man. This is brutal.