Kings’ De’Aaron Fox says he’s playing in Game 5 vs. Warriors: ‘No if, ands or buts’
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The Kings are saying De’Aaron Fox is doubtful for Game 5 of their first-round series against the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento due to a broken finger.
Fox says there’s no doubt about it.
“If it was the regular season, probably don’t play, sit out for a week or two and see how it feels, but right now there’s no if, ands or buts — I’m playing,” Fox said.
Game 5 could be the turning point in a best-of-seven series that is tied 2-2. The Kings won the first two games in Sacramento. The Warriors won Games 3 and 4 at Chase Center in San Francisco.
“We’re still even,” Fox said. “It’s a three-game series now. We have to take care of home court.”
Fox participated in a noncontact practice Tuesday and appeared to be in good spirits a day after being diagnosed with an avulsion fracture to the left index finger on his shooting hand. He wore a padded splint on the injured finger and went through extra shooting drills after practice to get used to the feeling of the ball coming off his fingertips.
“For me right now, it’s just a tolerance on the pad on my finger, making sure I can shoot the ball,” Fox said. “As we got going, the pain started going away. I felt like I could do my normal shot, so I think I’ll be good.
“The ballhandling action was fine. As soon as I got out, dribbling and passing was fine, so for me the most important thing was could I shoot as pain free as possible.”
Jeff Stotts is a certified athletic trainer who operates InStreetClothes.com and serves as an injury analyst for Rotowire. Stotts published an entry on his website Monday explaining the nature of the injury, range of treatments and the possibility of Fox playing through the injury.
Stotts explained that avulsion fractures in the fingertips occur when one of the muscles that anchors to the distal phalanx pulls away a small piece of the bone. Stotts noted that such injuries “result in different deformities based on the muscle involved, specifically mallet finger for an extensor injury and jersey finger for a flexor injury.”
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), most mallet finger injuries will heal with nonoperative treatment over a period of eight to 12 weeks, even when treatment is delayed up to three or four months. However, a jersey finger diagnosis requires surgical treatment and generally means eight to 12 weeks of inability to compete in most contact sports.
A mallet finger injury usually results from an axial or jamming force directed at the fingertip while the distal interphalangeal joint (DIPJ) is in active extension. A jersey finger injury usually results from forced hyperextension of the DIPJ, often while a player is grasping the jersey of an opponent who quickly pulls away.
The Kings have not disclosed the exact nature of the injury, but Fox said it occurred midway through the fourth quarter of Sunday’s 126-125 loss to the Warriors in Game 4. He said he sustained the injury when Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins swiped at the ball as he was driving to the basket.
Fox said he started to feel pain when Warriors center Kevon Looney struck him on the left hand with 4:35 remaining.
“It had already happened, but that’s when I actually felt it, but other than that the adrenaline was pumping so I was fine through the rest of the game,” Fox said. “After the game is really when it started to swell up and I really started to feel it.”
Fox said he is receiving treatment around the clock.
“It’s a lot of icing, icing the hand, some machine that we have,” Fox said. “I don’t know what it’s called. I just sit down and let them work their magic, but it’s definitely around-the-clock treatment, just trying to take as much of the swelling and the pain away. Obviously, you can’t speed up a bone fixing itself, but just trying to get to the swelling down and the pain tolerance.”
Stotts noted that a number of players have played through index finger fractures, including Roger Mason Jr. and Kobe Bryant.
“Bryant’s situation is particularly interesting as he suffered the injury twice, once in 2009 and again in 2010,” Stotts wrote. “He played through the injury in 09 and missed just a pair of games the following season. Kobe wore a splint on the injured digit for the entirety of Los Angeles’ run to the 2010 title.”
Warriors star Stephen Curry sought Bryant’s advice when he fractured the ring finger on his shooting hand in November 2017, an injury that caused him to miss one game against the Kings. ESPN reported Bryant told Curry it was one of the more painful injuries he experienced in his career and it did not heal quickly.
Fox is averaging 31.5 points, 6.0 rebounds, 7.0 assists and 2.5 steals in his first career playoff series, but it remains to be seen how effective he could be with the injury.
“If he can suit up, look for Fox to wear some sort of protection on the injured digit,” Stotts wrote. “However, the fracture did occur to his shooting hand and a splint would likely negatively impact his touch on the ball.”
This story was originally published April 25, 2023 at 3:21 PM.
