Philadelphia 76ers forward Paul George missed five games after suffering an injury to the extensor tendon in his left pinky finger on Jan. 25. Since returning to the lineup on Feb. 5, George has been playing with a splint on that finger.
“I’m hanging in there,” George told reporters after the Sixers’ 124-104 loss against the Boston Celtics on Friday, via NBC Sports Philadelphia. “I’m just trying to give this team everything I have.”
George confirmed ESPN’s report that he had gotten injections to relieve the pain in his pinky.
“The report is true,” George said. “I am taking some sorts of medicines to kind of, I guess, play through pain. But yeah, I’m going to try to give everything I got.”
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This injury will keep affecting him for the time being. When George returned from his five-game absence, he told reporters that he would need to have the splint on his finger for at least six weeks. George said, though, that it helped to be able to rest it over the All-Star break.
“It did, definitely,” he said. “Especially being able to soak in salt water. It’s good for the body. So I got a lot of that in over the break. But it definitely kind of helped.”
In six games with the splint on his finger, George has averaged 11.3 points, 3.0 rebounds and 2.7 assists in 32.2 minutes per game while shooting 41.9% from the field and 34.3% from 3-point range. The low point came on Feb. 12, right before the break, in Brooklyn — with both Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid out of the lineup, George scored two points on 1-for-7 shooting and told reporters after the loss that ball-handling, catching the ball and going left were all more difficult because of the splint.
Before George’s injury, he was playing his best basketball of the season. On Jan. 24, with Embiid sidelined, George scored 30 points on 11-for-22 shooting in a 132-129 win against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
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The Sixers have lost all six games that George has played with the splint on his finger, and they’re now 20-35 on the season, 1.5 games behind the Chicago Bulls for the final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference.
It’s astonishing to think that just two weeks ago, team president Daryl Morey expressed optimism about the Philadelphia 76ers’ season, suggesting it could still be a “special season” with a chance to compete for a championship. However, given how dire their current situation appears, it’s hard to hold onto that same optimism.