Los Angeles Clippers star Paul George is expected to miss at least two to three weeks after suffering a sprained right knee. After taking a hit from Oklahoma City Thunder guard Luguentz Dort, George avoided significant damage to the major ligaments in his right knee, and a return for the playoffs is not out of the realm of possibility.
Lu Dort took a bit of flak for the part he played in the nasty-looking leg injury, but George came to Dort’s defense. In the latest episode of Podcast P with Paul George presented by Wave Sports + Entertainment, George says he doesn’t think Dort had any ill intent as he was chasing after the loose ball rebound.
“I don’t think what he did was malicious, he wasn’t trying to hurt me,” Paul George said on his podcast. “He was just trying to play hard. He can get wild at times, but he’s a hard worker, plays hard and was trying to get extra possessions. I don’t knock him for competing. It was just a freak accident.”
George jumped for a defensive rebound with just over four minutes remaining in the game between the Clippers and Thunder. He grabbed the rebound, but Dort came in swinging for the ball, missing, and making contact with George’s leg from the front as it hit the ground. George’s leg hyperextended in a somewhat gruesome fashion, sending him immediately to the floor in pain:
Here’s the play where Paul George suffered what appears to be a leg injury. pic.twitter.com/k0JbXyrXvn
— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) March 22, 2023
“Initially I got the rebound and I see him [Lu Dort] swipe to try and get the ball, but it’s out of his rebounding area. … I come down and feel his knee hit mine and immediately I just felt my leg go back. So automatically I dropped the ball like f**k that, drop this s**t. I wouldn’t say [it was dirty]. I like how Lu Dort competes hard, it was just a wild play from his side. I had the ball and he finished through me. Basically, it would’ve been contact regardless. It wasn’t a way he was gonna avoid me. He tried to go rebound it and just flew towards me. The way he hit me, my knee didn’t have a chance to absorb my fall so my leg kinda just got stuck. So when he hit me my leg went backward because it’s the only way my leg could have went.”
George laid on his stomach for a few minutes, his head on his hands as he dealt with what he called an enormous amount of pain.
“It was like the pain where you just close your eyes like, ‘Damn, when is it gonna stop?’ I was like, ‘Damn, when is the pain gonna stop?’ It was throbbing, it was hurting. The only thing going through my mind was, ‘I hope I didn’t tear no major s**t. I hope I didn’t blow anything.’ Because you hear stories of dudes blowing their knees out, it happens in every sport, in contact sports, runners, things outside of contact sports, and you hear about them blowing their knees out.
“And you think about, like you don’t wanna know what that feels like, but if it happens, what does that feel like and that’s what was going through my head. Like, ‘Is this it? Is this what it feels like you tear your ACL, when you tear your MCL? Is this the injury right here?’”
Thankfully, Paul George appears to have avoided the worst, with multiple people within the Clippers calling this a “best-case scenario” for George following what initially looked like a season-ending injury.
In all likelihood, Paul George’s regular season is over. He’ll finish averaging 23.8 points, 6.1 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 1.5 steals per game on 45.7 percent shooting from the field and 37.1 percent from 3-point range in 56 appearances for LA.
Still, there’s a chance George could return to the Clippers for the playoffs. That, however, depends on how George responds to rehab and therapy over the next few weeks.
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