SALT LAKE CITY – The NBA has a new iron man. And probably no one cares less about it than Joe Ingles.
For the first time in 384 games in the regular season, Ingles was not in the series when Utah beat the Bucks 131-118 in Milwaukee on Friday because he had straight Achilles. This put an end to the longest active consecutive matches played in the league.
“He’s going to play if he can,” Jazz head coach Quin Snyder said. “There were many times he played through pain, and probably an injury he sometimes didn’t tell us about.”
It is also not hyperbole. Over the years, Ingles has played through a sprained middle finger and a left ankle sprain. He even continued to play after learning that his son, Jacob, had been diagnosed with autism.
Therefore, it was the first time Donovan Mitchell played an NBA game without Ingles being active. And yes, things were a little weird.
“It was weird. There are a lot of things I did not realize what Joe was doing before he was there,” Mitchell said.
Sure, that included handling the ball, giving the Jazz some defense and another shot, but those were the things Mitchell noticed most outside of the game.
“Predict warm-ups, we got a little handshake, intro, we got a handshake, and he shouted certain things in a locker room at 20 minutes on the clock. There are only little things you miss,” Mitchell said. said.
Ingles has not missed a game since December 16, 2015, a series that spanned five years and 418 games in total, if you include the playoffs. Friday’s game in Milwaukee was only Ingles’ fifth missed game in his seven-year NBA career. He has played in every game for the past four seasons.
His series was the longest by a Jazz player since John Stockton played 442 consecutive games in the regular season from 1997 to 2003. Cory Joseph, the guard of Sacramento Kings, is now the league’s active leader, with 274 games in a row entering Friday.
“As much as anything, it makes you stop for a moment,” Snyder said across the line. “And you think about what a series of consecutive games like that means and what it says about Joe – his toughness, his dedication, the type of teammate he is. … You understand why you respect him the way you are.”
Ingles has often underestimated the importance of the series over the years – and did so again on Friday, tell ESPN, “I do not know what the big deal is, honestly.”
He has always been proud to play the game as much as possible. When some teammates rested for the playoffs, he played. When some players needed a day off due to an injury, he jogged out there. It is his job to play basketball; he always felt this was what he had to do.
“Because I get paid to play basketball,” Ingles said last August when most Utah forwards put the games out before the NBA playoffs. “Again, this is my job, this is what I like to do. When I was playing for lollipops as a child – it was the first thing that ever got me on a court … I’ve loved it ever since. statistics or for numbers or the history book … I like to play and Quin knows it. ‘
So expect a new series to start as soon as Ingles is healthy enough to come back, which according to Mitchell will be sooner rather than later.
“It’s definitely weird not to have him out there, but he’ll be back next game,” Mitchell said. “He’s had a great, very great series. He’s done it in his career. It’s pretty wild. It’s definitely impressive.”
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Ryan Miller