3:20pm: The Raptors have confirmed in a press statement that Barnes, Trent and Young are all doubtful to play in a critical Game 2 against the Sixers on Monday.
The club has indicated that Barnes officially has been diagnosed with a left ankle sprain, while the official diagnosis for Young is a left thumb hyperextension.
12:55pm: Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said today that rookie forward Scottie Barnes, veteran forward Thaddeus Young, and starting shooting guard Gary Trent Jr. are doubtful to suit up in Toronto’s second game of its first round series vs. the Sixers on Monday, reports Tim Bontemps of ESPN.
According to Bontemps, Nurse indicated that all three Raptors players will be monitored over the course of the next day.
“I mean, listen, it doesn’t look good for any of those guys,” Nurse said after a team practice Sunday. “They’re all going to be listed as probably doubtful, so it doesn’t look good for any of them. We’ll evaluate them as we go and see where we end up.”
Josh Lewenberg of TSN Sports reports (via Twitter) that Trent left the club’s practice Sunday as he deals with an illness. Nurse revealed that the ailment, a non-coronavirus illness, has kept Trent’s attendance in practice erratic.
Barnes, who tweaked the ankle during the Raptors’ 131-111 Game 1 loss to the Sixers on Sunday, is undergoing an MRI on the ankle. Young, dealing with a left thumb sprain, already got an MRI of his own and is currently waiting on the results.
Losing Barnes and Trent, both of whom started for Toronto Saturday, would be a big blow for the fifth-seeded Raptors, already the underdogs in the series. Young played for six minutes yesterday as a reserve.
The 6’9″ Barnes, a first-year player out of Florida State, is a finalist for Rookie of the Year hardware this season. Across his 74 contests for the 48-34 Raptors, the 20-year-old is averaging 15.3 PPG, 7.5 RPG and 3.5 APG, while shooting 49.2% from the field and connecting on 73.5% of his free-throw looks.
Hope Barnes injury doesn’t make him out for the series. Even as a sixers fan I love his game.
Me too….+ I don’t like to see anyone get hurt. He is a good young player and should go on to have a solid career based upon what he has shown this year.
13Morgs13 with a classy af comment man. Sucked watching that ankle buckle. Was looking forward to this series.
Barnes plays nasty which I like. The Raptors aren’t built for a long series with the Sixers but I admire their scrappiness.
Sixers vs Heat in the second round
Tough timing for Tor
Philly needs to go for the throat and early
I feel a Joel explosion coming, Harden can assist and get the other players MoJo up this series. He will be needed at a later date