Updated: Oct. 29, 12:45 a.m.
BOSTON — Nik Stauskas went through a rigorous pregame warmup and was ready to go in Wednesday night’s season opener against the Celtics at the TD Garden.
After rehabbing a stress reaction in his right tibia, Stauskas finally felt like he was ready to show his new teammates what he could do.
But then his back went out.
Just 10 minutes before the Sixers were going to take the floor before Wednesday’s game, Stauskas suffered spasms in his lower back and the Sixers’ medical staff decided to give him the night off from eventual 112-95 loss to the Celtics (see game recap).
“I felt great. I was knocking down shots and dunking and then on my way off the court, I felt my back stiffen up,” Stauskas said. “It wasn’t one specific move. It just locked up and it was just one of those things that once I cooled down, my back was clenched and I couldn’t rotate from side to side.”
Stauskas thought he could play through the pain, but because of his limited mobility he knew he would be a liability.
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“I felt OK, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to turn and make quick moves,” Stauskas said. “I just felt defense would have been hard for me to stay in front of people and make quick movements. So we decided that because I was only going to play limited minutes anyway, we’ll just try again Friday.”
Stauskas said the backs spasms aren’t anything new. He missed two games during the second half of last season when he was playing for the Kings because of spasms.
“When I missed the games last year it was a lot worse than this,” Stauskas said. “It came out of nowhere.”
The tightness and pain subsided significantly after the game and Stauskas said he will be ready for Friday’s game against Utah at the Wells Fargo Center. Coach Brett Brown said his shooting guard is day-to-day.
“It had nothing to do with his previous injury,” Brown said. “He gets all excited to play and he pushed himself to test the original injury in warmups and 10 minutes before we were going to go out and warm up, we were told he couldn’t play.
“That’s all it was, back spasms.”
The Sixers could have used Stauskas in the opener, as they shot just 7 for 22 from three-point range, including 2 for 10 in the first half.