Gordon Hayward sustains dislocated ankle, fractured tibia in Celtics debut

Cleveland • Tuesday night’s game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics was one of the most anticipated basketball nights of the entire year. It marked both the return of Kyrie Irving to face the team he asked to be traded away from earlier this summer and the beginning of the 2017-18 NBA season.

Less than halfway into the first quarter, none of that mattered anymore.

Gordon Hayward, the all-star forward making his Celtics debut after signing with them as a free agent this summer from the Utah Jazz, fell awkwardly after colliding with LeBron James while going for an alley-oop pass and crashed to the floor, his left foot pointing in the wrong direction after dislocating his ankle and fracturing his left tibia — an injury that could be heard on TNT’s broadcast.

In an instant, an arena that had been full of frenetic energy was shocked into a sudden silence, while players on both teams reacted in horror. And at the same time, a team that entered the season projected to be among the NBA’s elite now finds itself staring at a far different reality than they were expecting.

Boston fought back from an 18-point deficit to lose, 102-99, to Cleveland on Tuesday night. But the result was irrelevant. Hayward’s injury, and the impact it had on both the Celtics and the rest of the Eastern Conference, pushed all other story lines to the rear.

By pairing the Hayward and Irving with Al Horford, the Celtics felt like they had a chance to give James his biggest challenge yet during his seven-plus years of Eastern Conference dominance, while at the same time setting themselves up to be a contender for years to come.

Now, all of that has been thrown into the air. It’s still unclear when Hayward is going to be back, but anyone who witnessed the injury here at Quicken Loans Arena was under no illusions that such a recovery would be a speedy one. And, for Hayward and the Celtics, speed isn’t the important thing in this situation; it is ensuring Hayward, who had developed into one of the league’s best and most complete forwards, and an annual all-NBA candidate at one of the league’s deepest positions, is able to return to that level again in the future.

But in the short term, it’s hard to look at the Celtics and see anything but a mid-tier playoff team in the Eastern Conference, at best, if Hayward is unable to return this season. In trading for Irving and signing Hayward, Boston was forced to sacrifice significant depth from its roster to make the money work. They sent Avery Bradley to Detroit to pave the way to sign Horford, and Jae Crowder went to the Cavaliers as part of the package that brought back Irving.

That’s what any team would, and should, do to land players of the caliber of Irving and Hayward. But it left Boston in a position where it was already reliant on young players like rookie Jayson Tatum and sophomore Jaylen Brown - both of whom started Tuesday - to step into significant roles around them.

Now, the burden on those players, as well as Terry Rozier and Marcus Smart, Boston’s backup guards, has grown significantly.

“It’s on all of us to fill our roles more effectively because, well, we have to,” Celtics Coach Brad Stevens told TNT’s broadcast at halftime, when asked how his team would cope with Hayward’s injury.”

Hayward’s injury also blows open the top of the Eastern Conference, where many had presumed the Celtics would be positioned alongside the Cavaliers this season. The team that now has to assume the pole position for a top-two seed alongside Cleveland is the Washington Wizards.

There already wasn’t much of a gap between the Celtics and Wizards before Hayward’s injury. After it? One could argue the Wizards are the clear favorites to secure home court until at least the Eastern Conference finals - and, with it, yet another chance to end Washington’s 20-year drought without a conference final appearance in any of the four major professional sports.

None of that was on the minds of those watching Tuesday night, though. Instead, it was the image of Hayward on the ground, his left leg bent at the knee and his foot pointing sideways, that stuck in the minds of those who attended one of the most anticipated games of the season.

It became a night no one here would ever forget - just in a very different way than anyone anticipated when they woke up Tuesday morning.

WARNING: Graphic Content