The Pacers will be adding a bit more firepower to their offense soon, as Bennedict Mathurin is nearing his return. He is officially being listed as questionable for tomorrow’s game against the Hawks, per the Pacers’ Twitter .
Dustin Dopirak of the Indy Star writes that this season, it’s been common for players bumped to a “questionable” designation after missing multiple games to suit up as soon as they’ve been upgraded.
Mathurin has missed the last 11 games for Indiana after leaving a January 2 matchup against the Spurs early with a right thumb sprain. He initially tried to play through the injury, but it was decided that some time away to heal would do him good. He also missed 11 of the team’s first 13 games with a big toe sprain.
Mathurin is second in scoring for the Pacers on the season, averaging a career-high 17.8 points per game, behind only Pascal Siakam and narrowly edging out Andrew Nembhard , who is at 17.7 points per game.
We have more injury notes from around the league:
- Jalen Green received an MRI following his early departure from Friday’s Suns game, and there was no new injury revealed by the test, according to head coach Jordan Ott (Twitter video link per AZ Central’s Duane Rankin). “That’s great news for us,” he said. “Get a workout today, and we’ll see where he goes this week.” Ott said Green should be considered day-to-day moving forward. Green has struggled to stay on the floor for multiple games as he looks to return from his hamstring injury fully. Twice now, he has played one healthy game before exiting the next one after only a few minutes. “It was just so unlucky, you know, he was feeling so good in the end of that third quarter,” Ott said. “So that’s why you take an image, that’s why you see what it feels like the next day, and we know he’s an incredible healer and a guy that’s gonna do everything it takes to play the next one, so that’s encouraging news.”
- Ty Jerome is nearing his season debut for the Grizzlies, writes Damichael Cole of Memphis Commercial Appeal (Twitter link ). “He’s already progressed to five-on-five live,” said coach Tuomas Iisalo (video link ). “So we’re very close. I think the evaluation is somewhere within one or two weeks… he still needs to build a little bit of load before the actual games, but he’s doing great, he’s progressing really well.” Jerome signed a three-year deal with Memphis this summer after a breakout year with the Cavaliers that saw him land third in Sixth Man of the Year voting as he averaged 12.5 points and 3.4 assists in just 19.9 minutes per game.
- Cade Cunningham is nursing a wrist injury but is attempting to find the balance between rest and treatment and playing through it for the Pistons, writes Omari Sankofa II of the Detroit Free Press (Twitter link ). “It’s not easy what he’s going through,” said coach JB Bickerstaff. “Wrist on your shooting hand makes things a little more difficult … it’s one of those things where we’re hopefully it just takes time.” Cunningham downplayed the impact, saying that he felt good coming into Sunday’s game against the Kings. “Felt great this morning, felt great last night, so it’s cool to be able to come out and just… get some reps up with it,” Cunningham said, per Sankofa (Twitter video link ). Cunningham said that it’s been difficult, but he’s hoping that he’s through the worst of it now. “It’s been a battle as far as, like, mentally, as far as figuring out how I can help us, was not liking how I felt shooting and just constantly kind of, like, flinching when I was shooting ’cause I didn’t know how I would feel,” he said. He added he thought the injury happened against Cleveland on January 4, when he fell on it, and that it was exacerbated when he got hit in the same spot in the next day’s game against the Knicks. “For the most part we felt like it wasn’t going to get worse from me playing or anything, unless someone smacked it,” he noted. “For me it was just based on if I was willing to play with it hurting like that.”