Khris Middleton Suffers Knee Injury in Game 2

Head coach Mike Budenholzer said he suffered an MCL sprain.

If the Milwaukee Bucks dropping the second game of their first round series in the NBA playoffs wasn’t bad enough, one of their franchise cornerstones might be unavailable for quite a while.

The play that Khris Middleton got hurt on was a weird one. Milwaukee had the ball, and Khris got tangled up with Alex Caruso and ended up slipping to the ground. He stayed in for a few moments, seemingly waving off the bench, but eventually walked back to the locker room under his own power. TNT, of course, did not show a replay of the play where (presumably) Khris suffered the injury, making it difficult – more than usual! – at this juncture to speculate about the severity. We did end up getting a replay pulled and posted by The Athletic’s Eric Nehm:

Middleton was not the only player to get injured on Wednesday night; reserve forward Bobby Portis got whacked in the face by Bulls big man Tristan Thompson, and ended up leaving the game with an eye abrasion. Naturally, no foul was called on the play, and the officials had this to say afterwards:

The bottom line is this: the Bucks need Bobby Portis, but they desperately need Khris Middleton. A knee sprain of this nature could last anywhere between a few days and a few weeks, depending on a number of factors. Could Middleton return before the end of this series? Might we see him again in this postseason, or not until next year? It’s impossible to say, but with the first round series evened up at 1-1, the Bucks will sorely miss the conductor of the Tough Shot Express no matter how long he’s out.