Nicolas Batum suffers “avulsion fracture” of left middle finger, probable for Tuesday
(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Nicolas Batum dislocated his middle finger fouling a 76ers player in the closing minutes of Portland’s game against Philadelphia.
He said he got it caught in a jersey when fouling and got x-rays following the game.
The x-rays revealed that Batum suffered an “avulsion” fracture of his left middle finger, the team announced.
“You don’t really care about it when that happens because you’re in the action it was a close game,” he said of his initial reaction. “Now because I’m texting, calls it kind of hurts.”
Batum said that since it’s his left hand “maybe it’s okay,” before the team announcement.
Batum rushed to one of the Blazers trainers, Geoff Clark to put the finger back in place in the heat of the game.
Batum scored 4 points to go along with 10 rebounds and 10 assists in the loss.
UPDATE: Via Kevin Pelton of ESPN.com, Kobe Bryant suffered an avulsion fracture in December of 2009 and played the whole season http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/12/sports/la-sp-lakers-timberwolves12-2009dec12
Erik Gundersen
Erik Gundersen is the Trail Blazers beat reporter for The Columbian. He's a graduate of the Allen School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon in addition earning a degree in Spanish. He's covered the NBA for four seasons. You can also occasionally find his work on ESPN.com's NBA section for their TrueCities series. He also fist-bumped with Kanye West once. Follow @BlazerBanter on twitter for more Blazers and NBA news.