After a wait of 380 days and a long rehabilitation process after his crusader injury, the Spaniard Ricky Rubio He returned to compete in the NBA this Thursday and did so with ten quality minutes and nine points in the game won by his team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, at the Portland Trail Blazers (119-113).
He is back @cavs
He’s back @rickyrubio9 ☺️ pic.twitter.com/PbcG2TbaS9
— NBA Spain (@NBAspain) January 13, 2023
The 32-year-old point guard from El Masnou came out of a tunnel into which the December 28, 2021when he was injured in a game against the New Orleans Pelicans, and his teammates dedicated special T-shirts to him on Thursday with the motto: “Difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations.”
It was necessary to wait more than a year to complete the rehabilitation. Rubio worked with commitment, without haste, and jumped onto the track with 3:38 minutes to go before the end of the first period, ready to compete again.
He carried the ball with looseness, without fear of contacts. He was the protagonist with good tackles and moved the rival defense with his usual elegance, in addition to connecting two consecutive triples in the third period that boosted the confidence of the Cavaliers.
He touched five minutes on the track in the third quarter, while he played 3.38 in the first and just under two minutes in the second, without competing in the fourth period.
His match ended with nine Points, three rebounds and one assist and watched from the bench as his team overcame the 50 points of a stellar Damian Lillard and sealed a great victory on the road, the ninth of 21 this year away from Cleveland.
Rubio had a +6 ‘plus-minus’ when he was on court and joins some Cavaliers that occupy the fourth position in the Eastern Conference (27-16), behind the Milwaukee Bucks, the Brooklyn Nets and the Boston Celtics, leaders .
Recovery step by step
It was the fourth period of a game between the Cavaliers and the Pelicans on December 28, 2021, and Rubio had 27 points when a torsion of the left knee caused the tear of his cruciate ligament.
The man from El Masnou underwent an magnetic resonance that confirmed the worst feelings and that certified the end of his 2021-2022 season.
The point guard had been playing possibly the best basketball of his career and in November of that year he had signed 37 points at Madison Square Garden in New York against the New York Knicks.
Then began a long recovery phase with a gradual return to individual training, until, last December 8the Cavaliers medical staff gave him the go-ahead to return to training in five-on-five.
On December 17, Rubio shared the emoticon of an hourglass on his social networks and the coach JB Bickerstaff set for “early January” his return to the track.
On the 31st of last month, in the run-up to the Cavaliers’ visit to the Chicago Bulls, Rubio trained with high intensity for more than half an hour on the United Center track and assured that his return was already “very close.”
This Wednesday, Rubio published the emoticon of an hourglass for the second time. This time to indicate that the wait was over.
The calvary It ended definitively this Thursday at the Moda Center in Portland.
Neither Rubio nor the Cavs want to take any risk and their minutes on court will be managed with the utmost care, but after more than a year of waiting, the point guard has already taken the most important step.
