It was an eventful opening day to the 2012 NBA post-season. In two of the four games that were played on Saturday, a team saw one of their key players suffer a season-ending ACL injury.
This is something that many people feared when the condensed, 66-game schedule was first announced back in December.
Now, Los Angeles Lakers head coach Mike Brown says that these injuries are directly related to the increased workload that the players had to deal with during the regular season.
According to Brett Pollakoff of NBCSports.com, Brown declared that he believes these injuries might not have happened if the league hadn’t been forced into a short season by the lockout.
“I think so. A shortened season, a lot of games in a short amount of time, your body changes and stuff like that, you never know. I’ve just seen a lot of injuries this whole year, and I think it probably has to do with playing a lot of games in a short amount of time.”
It’s hard to say whether or not these injuries would have been prevented if Derrick Rose and Iman Shumpert had the luxury of a full schedule, but there’s no question players faced an increased workload and less recovery time than in the past.
The already banged-up Lakers are hoping they can avoid injuries as well, as they begin their series with the Denver Nuggets today.