It looked a lot worse than it turned out to be.
Late in the third quarter of Friday night’s Clippers win over the Pelicans, Los Angeles’ Josh Smith blocked a shot at the rim that came out to the top of the key to Chris Paul, and he started to race up court in transition with Anthony Davis next to him. At that point, CP3 veered into Davis to draw the contact and get the foul (he did), but in the process injured Davis. Watch the replay in the video above, CP3 initiates the contact.
Watching Davis try to leave the floor was scary. It looked bad.
Fortunately, it turned out just to be a bruise.
Medical staff says @PelicansNBA Anthony Davis suffered a Right knee contusion in collision w/ CP3, no structural damage. Questionable return
— Jennifer Hale (@JenHale504) November 28, 2015
Davis did not return, and his status for a game against Utah on Saturday is up in the air. However, he shouldn’t miss much time with a bruise.
As for the play, there has been plenty of Twitter talk about if it was dirty. I wouldn’t say that, I do not think there was any intent to injure.
I would say the play was reckless, the kind of thing more likely to lead to injury. What’s more, that should be called an offensive foul every time — CP3 initiates that contact. He veers into Davis to get the call, and that’s an offensive foul. The referees called it on Davis (so long as that is the case, Paul and others will keep doing it).
Fortunately for all of us, the ultimate result was nothing serious.