The frustration continues for Raul Neto.
Fracturing a wrist that will keep the Utah Jazz backup point guard out of action for at least two weeks of a playoff run is daunting enough. The frustration is the recurrence of injury. The wrist comes on the heels of a sprained ankle. That came on the heels of a concussion. And so on.
“We feel horrible for him,” Utah forward Joe Ingles said. “He just can’t catch a break at the moment. He’s a huge part of the second unit, and he had been playing very well in terms of providing us a spark and getting after the other point guard defensively. We just feel bad for him.”
Ingles said the Jazz as a team will do whatever it takes to keep Neto engaged during his injury. For Neto, he had just begun to find a groove after being rusty when coming back from the sprained ankle.
The injury occurred in Sunday’s win over the New Orleans Pelicans. Neto drove baseline and flipped in a reverse layup, before falling hard on the wrist.
In his stead, Ingles took over a bulk of the backup duties during the first half of Tuesday night’s matchup against the Detroit Pistons. Alec Burks, who had been out of the rotation in the last two weeks, played six first-half minutes and scored on a layup.
Neto’s now missed 29 games this season due to his various injuries.
Favors’ milestone
Jazz starting power forward Derrick Favors is starting to etch his name in Utah’s record books. With a first-quarter rebound, Favors has collected 3,600 in his career. That’s 10th on the all-time franchise list. Favors passed former center Mehmet Okur to get into the top 10.
It’s an interesting list. Karl Malone has 14,601, which is over 7,000 more than second-place Mark Eaton. Rudy Gobert is 12th on the list at 3,027. He will probably rise rapidly on the list.
Another injury
Jazz rookie center Tony Bradley has suffered a concussion and been placed in the NBA’s concussion protocol. Bradley will be out indefinitely with the injury.
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