The Boston Celtics showed up for their 79th game of the season in familiar fashion: short-handed.
Only this time, the injury report has a whiff of finality with Kyrie Irving lost for the season -- and the postseason -- after a bacterial infection detected in his left knee will require additional surgery.
Coach Brad Stevens said Friday night before Boston's home game with the Chicago Bulls that he believed after Irving's initial surgery on March 24 to remove a tension wire, which the team suspected was the source of the pain in his knee, "We thought [his return] would be closer to three weeks than six the way he was initially progressing.''
"But it's just one of those things that is out of his control," Stevens added, in his first public comments since Irving's second surgery was announced. "He's as bummed as you can imagine.''
Terry Rozier, who will remain the team's starting point guard in Irving's absence, summed up the sentiment of a somber Celtics locker room.
"I feel pretty bad for him,'' Rozier said. "That's my brother. I don't wish that on nobody.''
Boston already has lost Daniel Theis (left knee surgery) for the season, and Stevens said Thursday night that Marcus Smart, who is recovering from a broken right thumb, "won't be back for the foreseeable future.''
The Celtics took the court against Chicago without Al Horford and Jayson Tatum (rest), and with backup point guard Shane Larkin, who has been battling an illness, on restricted minutes.
When asked if Irving should have considered undergoing what was described as "minimally invasive surgery" earlier in the season, as opposed to March 24, Stevens said he wasn't in the business of "what ifs.''
"There was no reason to think it was going to be an issue,'' Stevens said. "He had played with it for 2½ years. It's the bacterial infection that's the issue. My guess would be [the infection] was in there before and that's how they found it.''
Stevens stressed that Irving's knee, which was surgically repaired in 2015 following a fractured kneecap, was "structurally sound.''
"Everything around the knee is good,'' he said. "Everybody has told us from the get-go it was going to be a full recovery.''
As for how the team will fill yet another long-term void for a key injured player, a process that began for Boston a mere five minutes into its season when coveted free-agent signee Gordon Hayward suffered a gruesome ankle injury that has shelved him for all of the 2017-18 campaign, Stevens promised that his remaining players will not concede anything.
"I believe in the guys in our locker room," Stevens said. "I think they believe in themselves. That's the most important thing. We've got a tough group of guys in there.''