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While we won't know the extent of Bradley Beal's right knee/leg injury until an MRI does its work, there were some signs on Friday that the injury may not be as serious as initially thought. The Wizards' second-year guard apparently was able to walk out of the locker room to join the team without crutches, per Michael Lee of the Washington Post:
After having a precautionary X-ray, Beal moved down the hallway with the assistance of crutches but left the arena on his volition, limping and holding back his emotion. Beal will have an MRI exam Saturday in Washington but was encouraged about his outlook.
"The X-ray was pretty positive," Beal said before smiling to catch himself. "It was negative. My bad. It was negative. That's a good thing. I was hoping it wasn't anything too, too serious or too crazy. Hopefully, I'll be good moving forward."
Here's video of the play, where you can see Beal slamming into Luc Richard Mbah a Moute.
The hope is that the pain was mostly caused by banging knees and not anything structural. An X-ray being negative only shows that there was no bone deterioration; it means nothing in terms of discovering soft tissue injuries like a torn ACL or meniscus. Nevertheless, the fact that Beal walked out under his own power, even if he was limping, is a huge step up from this in just a few short hours.
— Mike Prada (@MikePradaSBN) December 28, 2013
