Jonas Valanciunas suffered a broken bone in his left hand in the Toronto Raptors' 102-91 win against the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday and is expected to miss six weeks, according to Yahoo! Sports' Shams Charania.
Jonas Valanciunas breaks bone in non-shooting hand, out 6 weeks
Valanciunas’ absence will make things tricky for Toronto.
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Valanciunas suffered it after Kobe Bryant inadvertently hit it and the injury was officially diagnosed as a fractured fourth metacarpal. In the 2012-13 rookie season, Valanciunas broke the same bone in his right hand, causing him to miss 18 games.
I's an unfortunate break for the Raptors, who rely heavily on Valanciunas' interior presence and don't have an obvious replacement for his physicality and defensive presence beyond Bismack Biyombo. Toronto will be forced to play smaller now, using Luis Scola, Patrick Patterson and maybe even DeMarre Carroll in the most extreme situations as the biggest players on the floor.
After the game, Raptors head coach Dwane Casey said Lucas Nogueira will be called up from the team's D-League franchise and could see some minutes, too. Nogueira is 7'0 but very raw.
Here’s what Valanciunas said to the media after suffering the injury on Friday.
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