Donte DiVincenzo’s Achilles Tear Has Furthered a Strange NBA Playoff Trend

Donte DiVincenzo’s Achilles tear shares an eerie similarity with those of Tyrese Haliburton, Damian Lillard and Jayson Tatum—and it’s not that all four injuries happened during the NBA playoffs (although that is pretty notable, as well).

Rather, it’s that all four players wear the No. 0 on their jerseys. Which means that, across the last two NBA postseasons so far, only the athletes with a zero on their chests were the ones who tore their Achilles tendons. Very weird ... and also maybe an omen for the most superstitious athletes to heed?!

DiVicenzo’s tear came 79 seconds into the Wolves' Game 4 win vs. the Nuggets on Saturday, when he suffered a non-contact injury to his lower right leg. The guard left the arena at halftime in a wheelchair, and it was later confirmed that he had torn his right Achilles tendon. He underwent surgery in New York on Sunday.

“I feel completely devastated for Donte,” a visibly emotional Chris Finch said after the game. “He was playing so well. He’s had such a great season. He's the heart [and] soul of so many things that we do. You can just see the look in his eye when it happened, and you kind of knew. We love him, and we’ll be there for him.”

Minnesota star Anthony Edwards also left Saturday’s game with an apparent injury, later revealed to be a bone bruise and a hyperextension in his left knee. He will miss multiple weeks. The Timberwolves currently lead the first-round series 3–1.

DiVicenzo, meanwhile, has a long rehab ahead of him. Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton has not yet returned to play after tearing his Achilles during Game 7 of the Finals last June, and neither has guard Damian Lillard, who ruptured his tendon during the Bucks' first-round series last May. Celtics star Jayson Tatum, meanwhile, has made it back onto the court after tearing his Achilles just a few days after Lillard, but that fast a turnaround is certainly not the norm.

DiVincenzo, a Villanova export, averaged 12.2 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists in the regular season, and was also contributing heavily during his team's postseason bout against the Nuggets; he scored 12, 16 and 15 points in the first three games of the series.

Now, the Wolves need just one more win to advance to the second round, where they would face the winner of Spurs-Trail Blazers, but that objective has complicated tenfold with both Edwards and DiVincenzo sidelined.

We'll see if they can hold off a Nikola Jokić-fueled Denver to take the series come Game 5 at 10:30 p.m. ET on Monday.

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