The Los Angeles Lakers announced that Marc Gasol suffered a volar plate fracture in his left pinkie finger during their loss to the Boston Celtics. He is now considered questionable for the Lakers’ next game against the Utah Jazz on Saturday afternoon.
Gasol sustained the injury while diving for a loose ball. The Lakers originally diagnosed the injury as a dislocated finger, which he proceeded to relocate in order to play the remainder of the game.
However, an X-ray after the fact revealed the fracture. Gasol was in the middle of one of his best games of the 2020-21 season, and said that the adrenaline helped him play through the pain. “I made a couple already by that time.”
“I made a couple shots. … It felt a little weird when you go up, but adrenaline helps and at that point you want to help the team.” Gasol finished with 18 points, four rebounds, and three assists, with the 18 points being a season high.
Gasol hopes to play through the injury as early as Saturday if the medical team approves. “Hopefully, I think it’s a matter of talking to the medical team and see if this cools down and see where we’re at. But it’s my left and I don’t use it that much.”
Lakers head coach Frank Vogel praised Gasol for getting through the remainder of the night, specifically saying that he doesn’t need his left hand. “I said would it be better for you to go in the back and look at it or do you want to stay in.”
“He goes, ‘No, this is my left hand. I’m good.’ It’s my left hand. Like, duh. I don’t need my left hand. I think he literally said, ‘I don’t need my left hand (laughs).’ It was pretty awesome to see him continue on like that and to play through something like that.”
Given the Lakers’ current injury situation, Gasol may have to play through this injury without taking games off. In the Celtics game, the Lakers were without LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Andre Drummond, Markieff Morris and Jared Dudley.
In addition, Dennis Schroder was dealing with a foot infection, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had back spasms and Kyle Kuzma a sore calf.
Davis cleared for on-court activity
The only good injury news of the night for the Lakers came before the game, when it was announced that Davis had been fully cleared to return to on-court activities. With this, he’ll be back in the Lakers lineup some time in the next few games.
His most likely return will be when the Lakers face the Dallas Mavericks at the end of this upcoming week.
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