Celtics’ Jrue Holiday opens up about injury, unsure of return timeline: ‘They just told me that I broke my finger’
Finger injuries are common among basketball players. But for Jrue Holiday, the diagnosis he received last week was a new one.
The Celtics guard missed his second straight game Sunday with “mallet finger” in his right pinky, an injury to the outermost knuckle that prevents a person from straightening the finger.
“I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t really hear of the term mallet finger until people were telling me I had mallet finger,” Holiday said before the Celtics hosted the Denver Nuggetts at TD Garden. “They just told me that I broke my finger.”
Holiday said he suffered the injury while going for a rebound in Wednesday’s loss to the Detroit Pistons.
“Next thing you know,” he said, “I’m in a cast.”
Holiday does not expect to have surgery, but the timeline for his return is unclear.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s the first time. I’ve jammed a lot of fingers but never really had this before, I don’t think.”
Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla on Friday said Holiday would return once he can “manage the pain” in his injured finger, which was fitted with a spint/cast to, in Holiday’s words, “keep it straight for as long as possible.”
As of Sunday, Holiday had not “tried so far to catch a ball because of the pain” but said he “will soon.”
“I’m going to have to be in a splint for a minute,” he said. “But figuring that out (since it’s) on my shooting hand.”
Oklahoma City Thunder wing Luguentz Dort suffered a mallet finger injury in November and played through it, though he needed to wear a splint during games until mid-February. Dort said his shooting suffered while he adjusted to the splint, and Holiday’s shooting already has been a weak point in his game this season. The veteran guard has made 34.2% of his 3-point attempts and 27.6% of his corner threes, way down from his career-best 2023-24 marks of 42.9% and 61.9%, respectively.
The 34-year-old is regarded as one of the NBA’s best perimeter defenders, however, making the NBA’s All-Defensive first or second team in six of the last seven seasons.
Holiday, who’s also dealt with a lingering shoulder injury, has played in 47 of Boston’s 61 games, with Al Horford or Sam Hauser typically sliding into the starting lineup when he sits. The Celtics have yet to give Payton Pritchard, their third guard behind Holiday and Derrick White, a start this season, preferring to keep the NBA Sixth Man of the Year front-runner in his bench role.
“(It’s) obviously a little frustrating,” Holiday said of his injury. “Would love to be as healthy as possible, but things happen.”
The Celtics also ruled out center Kristaps Porzingis (illness) against Denver. It was Porzingis’ second straight DNP and third in the last four games.
Boston opened with a double-big lineup of White, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Horford and Luke Kornet against the Nikola Jokic-led Nuggets, who entered Sunday with the second-best record in the Western Conference behind Oklahoma City.
