After cruising through the first round, the Milwaukee Bucks are in line to get Malcolm Brogdon back soon.
The Milwaukee Bucks completed a sweep of the Detroit Pistons on Monday night. Looking to the second round against the Boston Celtics, Matt Velazquez of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has reported guard Malcolm Brogdon is close to returning to action. Coach Mike Budenholzer said an official timetable is expected in the next 3-5 days.
Brogdon has been out since mid-March, when he suffered a mild plantar fascia tear in his right foot. He was originally expected to miss 6-8 weeks, but he shed his walking boot earlier this month and a return for the second round of the playoffs became likely.
Brogdon averaged 15.6 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game during the regular season (64 games). He shot just over 50 percent from the floor, while leading the team and finishing tied for 10th in the league with a 42.6 percent clip from three-point range.
Sterling Brown started all four games of the series against Detroit in place of Brogdon, and offered a reasonable facsimile by averaging 8.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.3 steals per game (5-for-9 from beyond the arc). In Game 4, Brown nearly had a double-double (nine points and 13 rebounds, along with six assists).
As of Monday Brogdon had not yet done any live, full contact work. So while there’s light at the end of the tunnel, having him a full capacity seems to be a little way off. His status for the early games against Boston is automatically uncertain, even with some clarity set to come later this week.
The Bucks took care of business in the first round, beating the Pistons by nearly 24 points per game whether they had Blake Griffin (left knee) available or not. The Celtics will be a far greater challenge, and getting a key player like Brogdon back at some point in the series could turn things to favor Milwaukee.