The MRI Results Are In And Thankfully Giannis Has Avoided Any Damage To His Achilles

That sound you hear is every Bucks fan on the planet collectively exhaling, and for good reason. Avoiding the worst case scenario and having zero damage to the achilles is about as great as news as you could realistically ask for. That's what everyone has been nervous about, it's why non-contact injuries are so scary, so it's awesome to hear that Giannis avoided anything super serious or season ending. As I said last night, it doesn't matter who your favorite team is, you never want to see anyone get hurt let alone one of the best players in the world on a team with title hopes. If we could just put every player on a playoff team in bubble wrap for the next 3 games of the regular season, that would be great. We as fans deserve a healthy field for what should be an all time playoffs.

For MIL, the question now becomes what happens next? Shams is saying 1-2 weeks, so let's call that 14 days. At a minimum, that takes us to April 24th. With the playoffs starting on the 20th, MIL will play either that day or the 21st, which is 11 days away. Where it'll be interesting is seeing the break between Games 1 & 2. Last year for example, the Bucks played on 4/16 in Game 1, but Game 2 wasn't until 4/19. There's usually that 2 day break in the first round, which would obviously help Giannis' situation.

So while it's possible that Giannis is back in 11 days, it also wouldn't shock me if the Bucks are super cautious. You don't want a KD situation where a calf strain turns into a popped achilles. So let's say they play on the 20th, Game 2 I'm assuming would be 4/23, and then you get another 2 days off for the travel. Last year MIL's Game 3 in the first round was 4/22, so this year following that same timeline you're looking at 4/26. That's just over 2 weeks from today, and what I would consider a realistic return date.

Where it gets interesting is the Bucks are still very much in a fight for seeding. After their win last night, things are still as close as ever with 3 games left 

Their close to the season isn't exactly easy either, with 2 games VS ORL and 1 against OKC, two other teams that are still in playoff seeding battles as well. The good news for MIL is they own the tiebreaker vs NYK, so finishing with the same record won't hurt them. They are tied 1-1 with ORL, so those two games are pretty important. Keep in mind, because both MIL and ORL are leading their divisions, the next tie breaker would be conference record, and that's 33-17 for MIL and 31-18 for ORL. You can see why those two ORL games are now pretty important. 

The Bucks split the season series with the Cavs 2-2, but because CLE trails in the division at the moment, that would be the tiebreaker in MIL's favor.

You could make the case that everything from 2-5 (and maybe 6 if you wanted to get really drastic) is still on the table for the Bucks, who now have to navigate these last 3 games without their best player. So far, they are 3-3 on the year without Giannis, so it's not exactly the end of the world, they're just going to have to come through in these last 3 tough games, 2 of which are on the road where the Bucks are 18-20 on the season.

But at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is that thankfully Giannis avoided major injury. How it impacts the rest of their season and playoff path is what we're about to find out, but all you have to do is tread water until he's back, which certainly isn't impossible.