Serge Ibaka In Walking Boot, Unsure If He'll Play In Game 6
Toronto Raptors forward Serge Ibaka is listed as questionable and is unsure if he'll be ready to go for Game 6 against the Boston Celtics on Wednesday.
"I'll see how I wake up tomorrow," Ibaka said Tuesday. "It's different when it happened last night, I felt like I could still play and then this morning it changed a little bit. So let's see tomorrow when I wake up."
Ibaka exited Game 5 in the fourth quarter with a left ankle injury. He immediately walked to the locker room and did not return.
He showed up for Tuesday's media availability in a walking boot.
"It's just a little twist from last night's game," Ibaka said. "I'm just trying to see how I feel tomorrow."
He said it's still possible he'll play in Game 6 on Wednesday.
"We'll certainly wait and see there, but just like always, we go to the next guy," Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. "Don't know who that is yet. We've obviously played Chris Boucher some in this series. Could be Rondae, could be somebody else, but we'll just wait and see on that. Same as always: If he's there, we'll play him.
"I think there's a good chance of that. If he's not, then we'll move on to the next guy and see if we can get him ready to go."
Raptors guard Fred VanVleet got the same sense from Ibaka.
"He’s a big part of our team," VanVleet said. "You know what he brings to the table – defensive rebounding, shot making – so, yeah, obviously we need him out there. I haven’t spoken to him about how he’s feeling or anything, but just knowing him personally I would be surprised if he wasn’t out there."
Ibaka has averaged 15.1 points per game in the playoffs and 11.8 points per game in the second round against the Boston Celtics. He's been the Raptors leading scorer off the bench and one of the few contributors from that second unit in the series.
