Recap: Walker suffers scary looking head injury in Celtics' 96-92 loss to the Nuggets

Kemba Walker had a very scary looking injury in the 2nd quarter of the Celtics' loss to Denver. As of right now, he has been diagnosed with concussion-like symptoms. Photo via the Boston Celtics on Twitter @Celtics 
The Boston Celtics dropped the third game of their five-game road trip with a 96 - 92 loss to the Denver Nuggets under extremely difficult circumstances. They now sit with an 11- 4 record at the end of their longest road trip of the season.

Obviously, the most important and devastating outcome of tonight's game was the scary injury of Celtics star point guard Kemba Walker, who was stretched off the court immobilized in a neck brace after colliding head-on with the chest of teammate Semi Ojeleye. Not much was known amongst the fans and commentators as it was all playing out, but the longer it went on the scarier it got. Seeing Walker strapped down as he left the court was terrifying and for the next 40 or so minutes we had to sit with that image in our heads not knowing what was going on.

We finally received an update as soon as it was available, and thankfully (as of right now) the injury was not as serious as it looked. The Celtics announced that Kemba is suffering from concussion-like symptoms and would be examined further once they reached the hospital. Hopefully, the news continues to be more on this side of things and Kemba's injury is not as long-term and threatening as it appeared. Those types of moments are when you really put things into perspective and recognize that basketball is one thing that we all love, but the health and safety of each other as individual humans means so much more. On that note, let's continue to pray for Kemba and hope that some good news comes out soon.
As for the game, the Celtics took some time to recover after the scare that happened with the Walker injury. However, they did manage to eventually fight back and cut down a 19 point deficit but they just couldn't close the deal in a tough shooting night for the entire team overall.

Out of everyone, Jaylen Brown led the team with 22 points total with 10 rebounds and 4 assists. Brad Wannamaker had a good game off the bench in his replacement of Walker, scoring 14 points with 4 assists as well.

Jayson Tatum and Marcus Smart were big contributors to the comeback effort late in the game. Tatum had 16 points on the night with some big shots in his 32 minutes of play. Smart had 13 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 steals, but his team-high 3 turnovers were certainly a misstep.

Denver Nuggets point guard Jamal Murray had yet another impressive performance against the Celtics, scoring 22 points with 6 rebounds, 5 assists and some huge comeback crushing shots late in the 4th quarter. Center Nikola Jokic had a triple-double for Denver with 18 points, 16 rebounds, and 10 assists to go along with 3 steals.

Although they were not able to pull out the win, the Celtics showed a lot of heart and effort late in the game, fighting back to give themselves a chance at overcoming the emotional night. The most important thing to take away from this game is the health of Kemba Walker and that his injury is not something more serious or life-altering. A concussion (oddly) is what we should be hopeful for here as Walker's health matters more than win we could possibly get.

As for now, I assume Boston will most likely continue on without Walker for at least the next few games and try to keep their overall momentum on this season going despite the loss of two huge pieces of their rotation.

Check out the full box score of tonight's game here as well as a full highlight reel of the close game down below.



You can follow Thomas Desmond on Twitter @td_654.




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I'm a college student studying in Creative Writing as well as Communication and Media studies.