Amare Stoudemire has a bulging disk in his back and is out indefinitely, a damaging blow to the New York Knicks with a month left in the regular season.
The Knicks weren't competitive in the playoffs last year when Stoudemire developed a back problem, and any hopes of even qualifying for the post-season are in jeopardy now that he has another one.
"You don't wish it on any player, especially Amare, who's a big part of what we do," Knicks interim coach Mike Woodson said Monday before the Knicks played the Milwaukee Bucks. "All we can is just hope that it's not as serious as it may be and that he has a speedy recovery."
Stoudemire sat out the fourth quarter of the Knicks' victory over Detroit on Saturday after he said his back tightened up. He said after the game he wasn't concerned and believed he would play Monday.
However, he didn't attend the Knicks' morning shootaround and had an MRI in the afternoon that revealed the injury. The Knicks said he doesn't need surgery and the injury will be treated with rehabilitation.
Point guard Jeremy Lin is also out because of a sore right knee, but Stoudemire's injury is the greater concern."He's a big piece of our puzzle," Woodson said. "I mean, we rely on Amare to do a lot of things, scoring and rebounding and playing defence for us."
Stoudemire was finally playing well recently. He struggled for the first half of this season, having not been able to play much during the off-season after injuring his back warming up for Game 2 of what became a first-round sweep against the Boston Celtics.
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