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Filed under: Cavaliers , NBA Injuries , NBA Playoffs Injuries. In the playoffs, you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them. No story is more tedious than the injury-watch that lurks in shadow, none more faux-moving than the return that gets everyone pumped — especially if the player is but a shadow of himself. And yet they can be a real part of the game on the floor. Then again, some guys, like Kobe Bryant, are always hurt. It’s just a matter of how much they adjust, or grit through, any given game. Brandon Roy’s comeback mad a mockery of getting hurt, getting better, and getting on with one’s career. When Gilbert Arenas tried this a few years ago, it was reckless, quizzical. Roy took a risk, and did very little, but he was a hero. Andrew Bynum’s got issues, but like Kobe, he’s viewing injury as just another factor to deal with. The internal becomes the external. Most of the Utah Jazz has simply been deemed too hurt to play, which tells you a lot about how Jerry Sloan sees individual players. Yesterday, Chris Tomasson looked back at Willis Reed’s surprising entry into Game 7 of the 1970 Finals. It’s hard to think that sports fans, or Americans in general, were that much more innocent and sentimental then. But medicine wasn’t as magical as it is today, and Reed’s was a symbolic gesture, not a real attempt to play. Thus, Tomasson’s right to point out that Walt Frazier actually owned that game ; on the opposing team, Jerry West played well despite having his hands mangled and shot up with painkillers. All of which brings us to, of course, LeBron James’s elbow, which is somehow all these things at once. It just might be the greatest injury story ever told. ? Permalink ?|? Email this ?|? Linking?Blogs ?|? Comments

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