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BOSTON – Avery Bradley’s hips don’t lie.
They may both be a bit banged up, but that didn’t stop Boston’s veteran guard from taking a page out of Shakira’s book Wednesday night, as he and the Celtics danced to a 123-101 Game 5 win over the Washington Wizards.
Bradley, who is nursing a hip pointer on each side, shook off his injuries and shimmied his way to a playoff career-high 29 points. On the defensive end, he shuffled back and forth between John Wall and Bradley Beal and helped limit them to less than 40 percent shooting from the field.
“Avery played like he’s supposed to,” said backcourt mate Isaiah Thomas after his team claimed a 3-2 series lead. “He played through it. It’s the Playoffs and we need him to play that way. He put his injuries aside, laced his shoes up and played, and he was the key to this game. On both ends of the floor, offensively and defensively, he did it all.”
Bradley suffered a right hip pointer during Game 2 against the Wizards and then sustained a similar injury to his left hip during Game 4. As a result of his impairment, he endured his two worst performances of the postseason during Games 3 and 4.
The guard totaled just 12 points on 5-of-17 shooting during Boston’s two contests in D.C., both of which the Celtics lost in blowout fashion. Frustrated by the results and his individual efforts, Bradley returned home and set his eyes on Wednesday night. He was not interested in letting the Wizards win Game 5. Not in his casa.
With that in mind, Bradley spent several hours Monday and Tuesday rehabbing his hips so that he could come back Wednesday night with a vengeance.
“Those two days were very important for me,” Bradley said of the off days in between Games 4 and 5. “I feel like our training staff is the best. They made sure I was in (twice a day) icing my hips, taking care of myself, and I just wanted to come out and play as hard as I can, play through the pain.”
Bradley played through the pain and made it look easy. He quickly erased all memory of the previous two games as he scored 14 points during the first quarter and pushed the Celtics out to a 33-21 advantage. Bradley shot 6-of-8 from the field during the opening frame, which accounted for one more make than he had during Games 3 and 4 combined.
He wasn’t done there.
Bradley went on to shoot 4-of-5 from the field during the second quarter, tacking on another 11 points to put his scoring total at 25 by halftime. It already marked a new playoff high.
“My mindset was to just come out and be aggressive,” said Bradley, who shot 12-of-19 on the night. “I wanted to be aggressive and I wanted to make those guys work on both ends of the floor, because I knew that I haven’t been playing to my ability on the offensive end the last two games. For this team, I wanted to bring my all.”
That’s exactly what he did.
Despite being the most banged-up player on the floor, Bradley had the most impactful performance of the night. He scored, he defended, and he made the Wizards go mad.
Reading the signs of his body, one wouldn’t have been able to tell that Bradley experienced any sort of discomfort during his Game 5 heroics. But he put all pain aside, and, as a result, the Celtics are one win away from dancing their way to the Eastern Conference Finals.