Kyrie Irving to miss 4-5 months after knee surgery

Injuries have left their mark on the Boston Celtics' season.

Celtics point guard Kyrie Irving will undergo another surgery on his left knee and miss four-to-five months to recover, the team announced Thursday.

Irving will have two screws removed from his knee that were installed in 2015 after he fractured his kneecap in the NBA Finals. The fracture has completely healed but a bacterial infection had developed around the screws, which necessitated another surgery.

It was initially reported Irving would miss three-to-six weeks to correct a lingering knee issue. Celtics general manager Danny Ainge said he wasn't "concerned at all" and it was not a "long-term" issue.

Boston will turn to the combination of Terry Rozier and Shane Larkin to hold the fort at point guard, while Marcus Morris has stepped up to fill the scoring load. But it will be difficult to replace Irving's production, as he is averaging a team-best 24.4 points per game this season.

This latest blow for Boston bookends a trying season in which it lost Irving in March and lost Gordon Hayward to a gruesome ankle injury five minutes into the season. Celtics head coach Brad Stevens still cobbled together the best defense in the league and held the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference for two months, but Boston has since slowed down and yielded that spot to the Toronto Raptors.

Their loss to the Raptors on Wednesday essentially locked the Celtics into the No. 2 seed. Another loss for Boston or another win by Toronto over the last week of the season will officially determine the team's place in the standings.

Ainge traded Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic, and an unprotected 2018 first-round pick of the Brooklyn Nets to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Irving last summer. He can become a free agent in 2019.