Chris Paul exited Game 2 late in the 3rd quarter with a groin injury. He would not return.
Suns point guard Chris Paul exited the Phoenix Suns’ 97-87 Game 2 road loss to the Denver Nuggets on Monday with left groin tightness. He appeared to suffer the injury in the third quarter while boxing out for a defensive rebound.
Paul immediately began limping and promptly left for the locker room before ultimately being ruled out for the rest of the game.
INJURY UPDATE: Chris Paul (left groin tightness) will not return.
— Phoenix Suns (@Suns) May 2, 2023
“He just looked like he was boxing out,” Suns coach Monty Williams said after Game 2. “He just came up where he couldn’t push off of it or anything. So we’re not quite sure what it is right now, but it seems to be something in the groin area. So we’ll find out more tomorrow.”
Paul exited with eight points, five rebounds and six assists in 25 minutes, with Phoenix having outscored Denver by eight while he was on the floor. He is averaging 12.4 points, 5.0 rebounds, 7.4 points and 1.7 steals per game in the playoffs while shooting 41.8% overall and 32.1% on 3-pointers.
The fourth-seeded Suns trail top-seeded Denver 2-0 as the Western Conference semifinals as it heads to Phoenix for Game 3 on Friday (10 ET, ESPN).
“All we can do is hope he has a speedy recovery,” said Suns guard Devin Booker. “We’re going to be behind him. We’re going to hold it down while he is out — or if he’s out — and just take it from there.”
Paul turns 38 on Saturday and has been mostly healthy in his previous two playoff runs with Phoenix. He missed Games 1 and 2 of the 2021 Western Conference finals because he was placed in the NBA’s Health and Safety Protocols, but was strong the rest of the series and had 41 in a series-clinching Game 6 win. He appeared in every playoff game for the Suns in 2022, which ended with them losing to the Dallas Mavericks in the West semifinals.
Injuries have dogged Paul at various other times in his playoff career, with the most notable being a strained right hamstring in the 2018 West finals. Paul, then playing for the Rockets, injured himself late in a Game 5 win against the Golden State Warriors that gave Houston a 3-2 series edge. He missed the next two games, including a 101-92 loss in Game 7 at home.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
