Scottie Barnes playing through injury for Toronto Raptors and here's what he's dealing with
The Toronto Raptors made an interesting admission on Thursday night: Scottie Barnes is playing hurt.
Putting up just five points — his lowest mark of the season — in 27 minutes of action, Barnes went just 2-for-8 from the field and 0-for-2 from beyond the arc.
Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic confirmed Barnes pregame that Barnes had a hand injury, but was willing to play through it.
“He’s in the mindset that he’s really trying to play through as many games, and to be available, and find the rhythm… to help us for the future,” Rajakovic said pregame. “There are plus and minuses on both sides. I also think his competitiveness and exerting his energy on the defensive end and really learning how to play deeper in the season is important for us as well, so we decided for now to go this route.”
Barnes missed the final few weeks of last season with a broken left hand, with this injury being on his right.
“You guys can see he’s even struggling dribbling out there,” Rajakovic added postgame, saying he wasn’t sure if he’d play on Friday night when the Raptors host the Detroit Pistons.
Rajakovic said that it’s something Barnes has dealt with for “months,” although that’s a bit inconsistent with the team’s own injury reporting.
Barnes first was listed as questionable on March 8 with a right hand contusion, and then was listed as out on March 12 with a sprained fifth metacarpophalangeal (also known as MP or MCP) joint on his right hand. Barnes missed just the one game, and has since played in 11 straight.
In layman’s terms, it appears to be a jammed finger on his right pinky that hasn’t quite healed over the last few weeks.
The MP joint is the medical term for the first knuckle on each of your fingers, which is what appears to be the affected area for Barnes. Most recommendations to heal such an injury involve rest, icing, and recovery, but it appears that Barnes hasn’t taken that path entirely by continuing to play through it.
“It’s a lot when I’m shooting, it hurts at times, and then in games it gets hit, it hurts more than then it usually hurts, but, you know, it’s a pretty daily thing. It’s not a risk of hurting it more, nothing crazy, but when it gets hit it takes a minute or two to calm it down,” Barnes told Sportsnet’s Michael Grange postgame. “The legs work perfectly fine, so I’m ready to go on out there.”
With just five games left in the season and little to play for in a season where most Raptors fans are more focused on the draft lottery placing than anything else, it’ll be interesting to see if Barnes plays much more this year.