The Official Site of Jermaine O'Neal

Sun, Feb 5th 2012, 22:36

Jermaine suffers bone bruise

Celtics center Jermaine O’Neal said he underwent an MRI Saturday in fear of a possible meniscus tear, but breathed a sigh of relief when tests revealed merely a bone bruise.

O’Neal played in Sunday’s win over the Grizzlies, chipping in four points, seven rebounds, and two blocked shots over 25 minutes, 20 seconds of action.

“[The MRI] actually turned out pretty good,” said O’Neal. “I still have a bone bruise, [but] I was pretty pleased with that because we were little nervous it was [a meniscus tear]. I told you guys, we’re never going to be healthy. Things are going to come up and you just have to come out and give what you can give. That’s what I try to do.”

O’Neal, who missed 58 games and required left knee surgery last season, missed three games last month while dealing with a bone bruise on his left knee after absorbing a charge from Orlando’s Hedu Turkoglu. That injury has actually healed, he said, but now he’s dealing with the right knee bruise that occurred Friday while simply running down the court in the second half against the Knicks.

“I stopped and my leg slipped, so my knee buckled a little bit, so I had a little bit of a pinch,” said O’Neal. “So that was something that was a little bit of a concern because I woke up the next day — actually, it was starting to swell a little bit after the game — but then the next day it was really painful. So they wanted to get a picture of it and the biggest thing for me is not being a meniscus tear. That was kinda the doomsday thing for me. When I got the call that it was a bone bruise, it was like, ‘I can play through that.’ A meniscus tear, those are tough to play through.”