Chris Wilcox wants to return next season

BOSTON HERALD
By Mark Murphy

Chris Wilcox took his first big step following heart surgery last night, when the Celtics [team stats] forward flew from his home in North Carolina to watch his team’s season-ending 106-89 win over Milwaukee at the Garden.

A slimmed-down Wilcox said that doctors have cleared him to resume workouts in June, and that he can expect to play again next season.

“I just lost 20 pounds from the surgery. It’s good weight I lost,” he said. “But I feel good. (Last night) was my first challenge of going out to a game and being in the arena. My first day, and everything worked out well. The doctors told me I should be good as new — the healing process has come along.

“When I found out about it I was more scared than anything, because I didn’t know what was going on,” said Wilcox. “It was a life-changing experience. You look at life totally differently. I never thought anything was going on or suspected anything. For me to go in and find it out was shocking.”

But Wilcox had a good friend to turn to in former Celtic Jeff Green, who had surgery to repair damage from an aortic aneurism in January.

“Jeff is a good friend. I’ve known him since his rookie year,” said Wilcox. “We talked about it, and he walked me through it a little bit. It was great for me, because it gave me someone to follow and talk to, but at the same time it was crazy. They saved his life just like they saved mine.”

And like Green, Wilcox hopes to play for the Celtics next year.

“I want to finish what I started,” he said. “I started to get a rhythm, and now I want to be a part of history too. I would love to come back and be a Celtic.”

Allen ‘probable’

Ray Allen missed his 14th game because of a swollen right ankle last night, and C’s coach Doc Rivers has to admit that the guard’s availability for the start of the playoffs is now in question.

The Celtics will start their first-round series against the Hawks Sunday, and Allen could easily be in a familiar spot — in the trainer’s room.

“He is (a question mark),” said Rivers. “It’s a concern, that’s all I can tell you. I don’t know much more than that. I think he’s probable. Isn’t that the football term for there being a chance of more than 50 percent that he’ll play?”

And then there’s the issue of how game-ready Allen will be once he returns.

“He can get back,” said Rivers. “But it will be a matter of the longer it takes him to play well. He hasn’t played in quite a while. To go from zero to 100, which is what the playoffs are, is very difficult. But when you put Ray on the floor you still have to guard him. By putting him on the floor, it gives us spacing.”

Jeff & Chris are and should be part of the long term rebuilding (retooling) process of the Celtics future plans. If the team could do Keyon over, that would be a reDooling process (LOL).

MD!