Nuggets win again
Ty Lawson had 18 points and seven assists as the Denver Nuggets improved to 2-0 in the NBA Vegas Summer League with a 92-74 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on the second day of action at Cox Pavilion.
The game was marred by injuries to Denver’s Brian Butch and Los Angeles’ Rob Kurz.
Othello Hunter added 14 points for the Nuggets.
The Lakers summer league team, much like its regular roster, has become largely reliant on two players to do the scoring.
Devin Ebanks and Derrick Caracter continued their stellar play on Saturday. Ebanks led all scorers with 24 points, while Caracter had 17 points and 12 rebounds.
Ouch
Former Wisconsin center Brian Butch, playing for the Nuggets, went down with what appeared to be a badly injured left knee.
He was screaming from the pain as trainers came out to assist him and the rest of the players on the court and on the bench were clearly uncomfortable at the sight.
Doctors and trainers worked on Butch for several minutes as he squeezed the hand of a trainer in excruciating pain.
Perhaps realizing how difficult a serious knee injury will make his goal of making an NBA roster, Butch was resigned to tears as he was wheeled out of the arena on a stretcher.
The preliminary prognosis was that Butch suffered a dislocated patellar tendon in his left knee. His summer league is certainly over.
Butch was the MVP of the D-League All-Star Game this season. He was a member of the Wisconsin team UNLV defeated to make the Sweet 16 in 2007, but he missed that game with an elbow injury.
Hit the music, please
The sound of Brian Butch howling and moaning in pain clearly made everyone in the arena uncomfortable.
Several players from both teams were wincing each time a new noise came from Butch while he was being attended to under the basket.
The question is, why wasn’t music being played to at least distract some of the attention and drown out some of the sound?
Music is played over the sound system here at every break. It would have been easy to pipe some in for that situation.
Finally, someone made the decision after about five minutes to hit a button and the music started.
It was about five minutes too late.
Close call
There is a fan in attendance today wearing a throwback No. 15 Latrell Sprewell jersey.
That fact is not worth mentioning on its own, but it becomes a little more interesting when combined with the fact that P.J. Carlesimo was also in the building this afternoon as an assistant coach for the Toronto Raptors.
The Sprewell jersey guy had left his seat for a moment and as he returned, nearly bumped in to the real Carlesimo.
Fortunately, the whole thing went down without incident.
Of course, Sprewell was famously suspended nearly an entire season for strangling Carlesimo, who was his coach at the time.
Ouch II
Robert Kurz, a Notre Dame alum trying to catch on with the Lakers, crashed into the padded basket support after a collision in the lane.
He went down grabbing his head and there was immediate concern for a concussion-type injury.
Instead, one of the players that quickly huddled around him shouted, “He’s bleeding, yo!”
He sure was.
Kurz pulled the hand away to reveal a forehead drenched in blood and was escorted to a back corner of the arena.
The forward, who played in 40 games with the Warriors two seasons ago, did not return.