Christian Wood leaves Rockets game in wheelchair with bad ankle sprain

Christian Wood’s ankle injury doesn’t look good for the Houston Rockets.

The Houston Rockets have dealt with enough adversity in the last calendar year, from that second-round playoff exit, to Mike D’Antoni and Daryl Morey leaving, to Russell Westbrook and James Harden forcing their way out via trade.

Now, they have yet another demoralizing blow on their hands after Christian Wood badly sprained his ankle and was forced to exit Thursday night’s game against the Memphis Grizzlies in a wheelchair.

Wood was able to walk off the court under his own power at first, before allowing his teammates to assist him. He avoided putting pressure on it and was then taken off the court in the wheelchair:

The Rockets are in trouble without Christian Wood

There is currently no information on the severity of Wood’s ankle sprain, but given his reaction, it’s not looking good. This feels like a fairly serious injury, and Wood seems to already know he won’t be back on the court for awhile.

ESPN’s Tim MacMahon reports he will have an MRI on the ankle on Friday, noting that Wood was forced to miss three games last month after rolling his ankle in similar fashion:

While the Rockets won the game by 12 to improve to 11-10 on the season, losing Wood for a lengthy period of time would be a major blow to their surprising rise up the Western Conference ladder following the Harden trade.

So far this season, Wood has put up a career-high 22.3 points, 10.4 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game on 55.3 percent shooting from the field and 39.7 percent shooting from 3-point range. He was well on his way to another solid outing on Thursday, racking up 17 points and 7 rebounds on 7-of-10 shooting with a plus/minus of plus-21 in his 20 minutes of action.

This situation doesn’t look good for the Rockets, but hopefully the diagnosis doesn’t wind up being as severe as it looked watching him walk off the court.