Raptors Injury News: Battle exits vs. Pacers with left ankle sprain

The Toronto Raptors injury luck appears to have run out.

Jamison Battle exited the Raptors’ game against the Indiana Pacers with a left ankle sprain on Wednesday and was subsequently ruled out for the remainder of the contest, the team announced.

He joins Immanuel Quickley (back spasms), Garrett Temple (back spasms), Sandro Mamukelashvili (illness), Ja’Kobe Walter (hip pointer), Jakob Poeltl (low-back strain), RJ Barrett (left ankle sprain) and Chucky Hepburn (meniscus tear) on the injury report.

Battle landed awkwardly while contesting an attempt from Quenton Jackson at the rim in the third quarter and limped off the court and to the locker room.

The 24-year-old Sophomore had five points, three rebounds and an assist after starting his second game of the season due to the bevy of injuries.

Toronto was one of the healthiest teams in the NBA through the first half of the season, facing almost no injury trouble until RJ Barrett and Jakob Poeltl missed stretches with a knee sprain and lower-back strain, respectively.

Battle was averaging 8.1 minutes per game and scoring 3.4 points while shooting 44.7 percent from 3-point range before Wednesday night’s game. However he’d been continually adding to his case for consistent rotation minutes thanks to his dead-eye shooting and functional defence, as our Louis Zatzman wrote about on Monday:

If you go purely by the on-off numbers (which, you shouldn’t), Battle is the most impactful player on the team. He leads the Raptors in on-off differential per 100 possessions, both offensively and defensively. He leads the team in efficiency differential offensively and defensively, in free throw differential. He leads the team in at-rim frequency differential, in at-rim efficiency differential, in transition efficiency differential. All told, the team is 27.2 points per 100 possessions better with him on the floor versus on the bench, which doesn’t just lead the Raptors; it leads the mother fucking league. 

But the team is only employing him in scenarios in which his ability to impact the game can be maximized. If he played 35 minutes a night, it would be questionable whether his on-off differential would be so pronounced.

The post Raptors Injury News: Battle exits vs. Pacers with left ankle sprain first appeared on Raptors Republic.