Injuries are the biggest opponents of the championship, just look at this year s team

On May 19, during the long NBA season, injuries often become the invisible hand that determines the fate of the team. The playoffs of the 2024-2025 season once again confirmed this cruel law - when the star falls, the dream of a championship shatters like a bubble. From the Bucks to the Nuggets, from the Grizzlies to the Warriors, teams that are highly anticipated have failed due to the injury of the core player, leaving behind a profound inspiration for "health is the strongest talent".

**Bucks: Domino effect caused by Lillard's tear in the Achilles tendon**

When Lillard fell to the ground with his left Achilles tendon in the third game of the Eastern Conference semifinals, Milwaukee's blueprint for winning collapsed instantly. This backcourt engine, which averaged 28.4 points per game, was originally a key puzzle to form an "internal and external dual core" with Antetokounmpo. Medical reports show that a secondary Achilles tendon tear requires at least 8 months of recovery, which directly leads to the Bucks being reversed 4-2 by the Knicks in the second round. The data won't lie: In the three games Lillard missed, the Bucks' offensive efficiency plummeted to fifth from the bottom in the league, and Antetokounmpo led the team alone and net loss of 12.3 points per 100 rounds. This reminds people of Holiday's steel attendance when the Bucks won the championship in 2021 - the total number of core rotations in the team was missing only 27 games, and this season's number soared to 89 games.

**Grizzly: Morant's knee injury curse**

The tragedy of Memphis is more like a fate. Morant's diagnosis of partially torn anterior cruciate ligament on his left knee has left the team in front of injuries for the third consecutive year. The 25-year-old point guard just scored 31.2 points + 9.1 assists after his comeback, but he encountered a 90-degree twist with the Thunder's G3. The Grizzlies team doctor revealed that the injury was related to the change in force habits caused by right knee surgery in 2023. What's even more fatal is that substitute point guard Smart suffered a finger fracture at the same time, forcing the 38-year-old Conley to play 41 minutes per game. When a team's assist-turnover ratio drops to 1.07 (the worst in the playoffs), no matter how gorgeous the depth of the lineup is, it cannot escape the fate of being swept.

**Knights and Warriors: Mirror Tragedy of Injuries**

Cleveland and San Francisco perform similar scripts. When Mitchell's right hamstring was second-degree strain, the Cavaliers were leading the Celtics 2-1. The medical team originally planned a 2-week recovery period, which was extended to 6 weeks after MRI showed 30% of the muscle fibers. Without this scoring champion who averaged 32.6 points per game, the Cavaliers averaged only 96.3 points per game in the last three games. On the other side of the Pacific, the news that Curry had torn his left labrum directly ended the Warriors' playoff journey. Coach Cole admitted: "When Stilland needed help even putting on and taking off his T-shirts, we knew the season was over." It is worth noting that both teams were plagued by the intensive schedule - the Cavaliers' core five-man missed 147 games in the regular season, while the Warriors set a record for the highest-age lineup in the past decade (average of 31.4 years old).

**Nuggets: The defending champion Achilles's Heel**

Jokic's story is replayed in Denver. Aaron Gordon's groin tear has been confirmed to be associated with overuse - the forward Ironman has played 17 games with injuries before the playoffs. When he left the game in the G4 in the Western Conference Finals for only 8 minutes, the Nuggets' defensive efficiency plummeted from 107.6 to 121.3. Sports science experts pointed out that the defending champion played 17 more intense games in the regular season this season (within 5 points in the last 5 minutes), and the total playing time of the core players was 483 minutes longer than last year. This consumption eventually broke out after Murray's old injury relapsed (right knee inflammation) and Pope's ankle sprain, causing the team to lose 2-4 to the Timberwolves.

**Injury Economics: Lessons worth hundreds of millions of dollars**

According to Spotac statistics, the teams that ended their playoff journey early this season due to injuries have lost a total salary of up to $317 million. The Bucks faced pressure of 189 million in luxury tax due to Lillard's injury, and the Warriors' "super luxury tax line" lineup caused the market value to evaporate by 5.2% in a single day due to Curry's injury. The deeper impact lies in the subversion of team building logic:

1. **Scientific load management**: The WHOOP sports bracelet system introduced by the Clippers can monitor players' muscle fatigue in real time

2. **Trend of younger lineups**: The rise of young troops such as Thunder and Magic confirms the importance of age structure

3. **Medical Team Arms Race**: The Suns' newly built 30 million US dollars sports rehabilitation center has become the new benchmark of the league

History is always surprisingly similar. The 1995 Rockets' miracle of "Don't underestimate the heart of a championship" is based on the fact that the core players of the season only missed 9 games. In contrast, in the 2025 playoffs, the core players of the four teams in the East and West Finals (Knicks, Celtics, Timberwolves, Mavericks) missed only 14.3 games on average in the regular season. When Jaylen Brown said after the Eastern Conference Finals, "We are not the most talented team, but we must be the healthiest team," perhaps the simplest truth in competitive sports: between 82 marathons and 28 life-and-death battles, those who can stand on the June podium are often not the most talented team, but the survival master who knows how to dance with injuries the most.

Those fallen superstars use their time in the hospital bed to remind the world: basketball is the sport of five people, but injuries are always the twelfth player of a team.