The Magic’s injury
Center breaks left index finger in 8th straight loss
woes deepen as Nikola Vucevic fractures his hand in a 130-103 loss to Washington.
WASHINGTON — The Orlando Magic’s 2017-18 season has turned into an unmitigated disaster.
The latest blow: an injury to their starting center, Nikola Vucevic.
Vucevic, the team’s leading rebounder and third-leading scorer, fractured the metacarpal of his left index finger during the team’s 130-103 loss Saturday night to the Wizards at Capital One Arena.
“I’ve never been part of a team that had so many injuries, and most of them are for quite some time, so it’s very unfortunate,” Vucevic said, his finger protected by a splint and his left hand and wrist wrapped.
“And it happens to me tonight. It sucks. It looks like we can’t catch a break from injuries at all.”
Vucevic will have surgery to repair the fracture in the near future.
One source with knowledge of the situation said Vucevic likely will miss six to eight weeks, but Magic officials insisted they don’t have a timetable for Vucevic’s return.
Vucevic hurt his hand midway through the first quarter, although he wasn’t certain if the injury occurred when Wizards center Ian Mahinmi swiped at the basketball or when Wizards swingman Otto Porter Jr. reached in a few fractions of a second later. Vucevic said he heard a pop, and then he doubled over, clutched his hand and called a timeout.
Elfrid Payton, Evan Fournier, Terrence Ross, Aaron Gordon and Vucevic comprised the Magic’s starting lineup on opening night, and all of them except for Payton are hurt.
Fournier, Gordon, Ross and rookie Jonathan Isaac sat out Saturday’s game, and Magic players already have combined to miss a total of 78 games this season due to injuries or illnesses.
Hampered by those injuries, the Magic have lost eight consecutive games and 19 of their last 22 games.
“You can’t really make an excuse,” third-string center Marreese Speights said. “The other teams ain’t going to make excuses for us. They’re going to try to beat us to death.”
Fournier, Gordon and Isaac might be able to play in the Magic’s next game, which is scheduled for Tuesday in Miami, coach Frank Vogel said.
But the Magic (11-23) depend heavily on Vucevic, who is averaging 17.4 points, 9.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game. With Vucevic out, Bismack Biyombo will receive the bulk of the playing time at center. Speights will back up Biyombo.
“I’m disappointed for Vooch,” Vogel said. “He wants to be out there and he’s going to have to miss some time, obviously. So that’s the first thought anytime a guy goes down for an extended period like that. So you feel bad for him.
“I don’t feel bad for our team and for what we’re trying to get accomplished, OK? We can’t hang our heads and look at all the guys that we have out. Bismack Biyombo was signed here to be a force for us and he’s going to get starter minutes now. And Mo Speights played backup center for the last couple of years. Those guys have got to pick up the slack.”
Orlando opened their season hoping to reach the playoffs for the first time since 2012. But with a playoff berth now highly unlikely, some of the team’s fans are calling for the Magic to tank the rest of its season to try to secure the top odds of winning the 2018 NBA Draft Lottery.
The Wizards (18-15) hope to improve on their second-round playoff finish last season. On Saturday, they received 10 points and 13 assists from longtime Magic tormentor John Wall, 17 points from Bradley Beal and 17 points from Porter.
Payton scored a careerhigh 30 points and distributed 10 assists.
He needed much more support — support he’s less likely to receive now that Vucevic is injured.
“I guess it hasn’t really hit me yet that I’ll be out for awhile,” Vucevic said. “But it’s disappointing. As soon as I saw it, I knew something was off with it. It’s disappointing. You work so hard to be out there every day and to compete.”