Milwaukee Bucks center Andrew Bogut had surgery to repair his broken right hand on Monday, two days after he sustained the injury.
Team officials said the Australian is expected to need six weeks to recover before he can begin full rehabilitation, essentially ruling him out for the season.
Bogut broke his hand in an arm-wrenching crash to the court during Saturday’s victory over Phoenix, which also caused him a sprained wrist and dislocated elbow.
Before the injury to Bogut, the Bucks were regarded as a potentially dangerous first-round playoff opponent.
Now instead of patrolling the paint for Milwaukee, Bogut will be recovering from surgery.
“Nobody wants to see another team’s player get hurt, especially in that kind of dramatic fashion like it happened,” Bucks coach Scott Skiles said on Monday.
“Yet at the same time, there could be some teams saying, ‘Man, I’m glad we don’t have to play Bogut tonight,’” he said. “It’s part of it. Our guys all understand it. There isn’t going to be anybody in Chicago shedding a tear for us that Andrew’s not playing tomorrow night.’’
Bogut was having a breakout season before the injury, averaging 15.9 points, 10.2 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game.
“It’s really disappointing for Andrew,” said Jerry Stackhouse, a midseason acquisition for the Bucks.
“I think he’s worked really hard to put this team in position to be in the playoffs, and be where we are right now,” he said. “No way we’d be anywhere close to it without him. Just disappointing he doesn’t get an opportunity to taste it a little bit.’’
While Bogut was scoring consistently, his defense and rebounding might be missed more.
“He’s able to cover up a lot of our mistakes defensively,” Stackhouse said. “We want to be aggressive, we want to stunt the guys on the perimeter and you’re going to give up some penetration sometimes. We’ve got to have guys step up.”
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