John Wall out again for Wizards-Hawks Game 3 with wrist fractures
As expected, Washington Wizards star point guard John Wall will miss his second-straight game Saturday when his team takes on the Atlanta Hawks at Verizon Center in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference Semifinals series. The Wizards announced the decision less than two hours before tipoff.
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Wall missed Tuesday’s Game 2, a series-tying Hawks win, after it was revealed that a left wrist injury suffered in Game 1 (which he completed) had swelled considerably. The news got much worse on Thursday, when the team announced that Wall had five non-displaced fractures in his wrist. There was some hope that the swelling would subside and that Wall would be able to dribble and play in Game 3, but that has obviously not occurred.
The Wizards will miss their star considerably. Although the team challenged the No. 1 seed Hawks in Game 2 before falling 106-90, Wall is one of the top point guards in the NBA and easily leads all playoff participants in points created via assists. Washington will turn to fill-in starter Ramon Sessions and regular shooting guard Bradley Beal for shot creation, although neither can approximate Wall’s impact.
Wall’s fractures became somewhat controversial this week when Michael Lee of The Washington Post reported that the two-time All-Star had pushed team medical staff for another opinion after their initial diagnosis of a really bad sprain. Head coach Randy Wittmann spoke out against those reports on Friday. As our Kelly Dwyer noted in that post, it’s difficult to know exactly what happened here, but the team’s decision to reveal Wall’s unavailability for Game 2 just an hour before tipoff was more than a little odd.
Wall is one of a few notable players to have missed multiple games in this postseason, including fellow point guards Chris Paul and Mike Conley. Here’s hoping that, like them, he’s able to return to the court after two games on the shelf.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
