TrueHoop reader Ben e-mails about the moment when Chauncey Billups got hurt last night:
I'm a little surprised that there isn't any chatter out there whatsoever about the way Chauncey was injured last night. If you look not at Chauncey doing the splits, but at Jameer Nelson's right foot, you can see that their feet got "tangled up." But they wouldn't have been "tangled up" if Nelson's foot had been upright rather than nearly parallel to the ground, with toes pointing toward the baseline bleachers. Do this yourself: Sit on the ground, and try to put your foot at that angle. Unless I'm just particularly inflexible, achieving that angle seems very unnatural to me.
Now, I'm not suggesting that Nelson intentionally injured Billups. But it looks to me like he intentionally hooked his leg to prevent Chauncey from getting an easy, wide-open layup after being outmuscled toward the hoop yet again. It just so happens that he might have seriously injured Chauncey while doing so.
I don't expect you to post this, or even pay much attention to it, because I probably come off as a wacko, paranoid Piston fan. And that's true, I am. But still, a little bit of media controversy cast in the Magic direction would be a welcome change.
On this little computer screen, it's hard for me to get a good read on Nelson's foot, but just watch Billups' legs. They just get pulled apart. I don't think you could do that all on your own even if you tried.
This is no great scandal. It's hardly the most evil basketball play ever. It's just a little garden variety playoff feistiness. But there's a real chance that Billups could miss Game 4 on Saturday, and if that happens, let's all agree to stop complaining about the clock deal in Game 2, OK?
In the meantime, Krista Jahnke of the Detroit Free Press points out that Billups and Pistons really do have an unfair advantage: legendary trainer Arnie Kander.
You hear about hamstring injuries and thoughts immediately turn to a long recovery process. That's not always the case, Kander said, and it shouldn't be with Billups.
That's because he didn't strain the muscle in with a high-velocity movement such as a sprinter would.
"You have to look at the mechanism of the injury," Kander said. "That's probably the key more than anything. Most hamstring injuries that you're really fearful of are speed-related, fast movements. This is the slowest hamstring (injury). It's like a dancer who tried to do the splits and wasn't ready for it. They get sore and all of that but they don't have any lasting affects."
Kander estimated that he'd give Billups "90 treatments" between this afternoon and Saturday night. That includes all sorts of things, from massage, to electronic stimulation to "stuff he won't even be able to spell," Kander said.
"We're going to hit him with a barrage of stuff," Kander said, "...pretty much around the clock. The goal is Saturday. That's what we'll do, we'll get him ready for Saturday." ...
He won't let Billups play until he can do everything he'd have to do on the court.
"When he can run, sprint, cut, jump, play basketball," Kander said. "Basically we really base in on him being able to do everything. We don't give numbers like 85 or 90 percent because there really is no way to classify that. When he can do what Chauncey Billups does... then we'll give him the go."
