Nuggets forward Kenneth Faried goes up to try and block a shot by Portland’s Allen Crabbe during Sunday’s game. (Photo by Brent Lewis/The Denver Post)
Chances are, the 24 hours from late Saturday night to after the Nuggets’ Sunday night game, is a period of time that will always be seared into Kenneth Faried’s mind. There was so much going on, so much to think about, so much to worry about.
When Sunday night’s game against the Portland Trail Blazers started, Faried was where he always was — in the Nuggets’ starting lineup. He smiled while dunking in the lay-up line. He bounced around in typical Manimal fashion. He, by all accounts, looked fine.
But he wasn’t.
Less than a day earlier, Faried was being immobilized on a stretcher at Oracle Arena, where an inadvertent hit to the back of the neck area by teammate Will Barton resulted in a cervical injury that doctors were taking no chances with. Even though he was able to get off the court partly under his own power, even though it was clear he had movement in all of his extremities, neck/spine injuries are nothing to toy with.
Faried was admitted to an Oakland-area hospital, and stayed the night.
“It was very scary,” Faried said. “I really didn’t know. I just kept contemplating — praying — that I wasn’t really hurt to where I wasn’t going to be able to walk again. It was one of those types of things that they kept saying they had to do certain stuff and everything was precautionary. I was like, ‘I’m good just let me up, just let me try to walk.’ They kept saying no because of the spot I got hit at. But, due to the blessings of Allah I was able to play.”
Faried flew home on Sunday morning and said he knew shortly after he arrived at the Pepsi Center for that night’s game, the second of a back-to-back, that he was going to try and play.
“When I got here, and everybody was just like ‘If you can go,’ and my teammates looked at me and said ‘We need you, if you can go then please help us and if not we understand,'” Faried said. “My coaches and everybody — coaching staff, front office people — was just asking me if I can go. I’m cut from a different cloth, you know? I’ve been through a lot in my life and I just knew if I could go I was going to go. So, I was able to go.”
Faried was tested quickly. On the first possession of the game, the Nuggets missed a shot, snagged the offensive, worked the ball around, and eventually found Faried for a post-up. It was a back-to-the-basket action which can result in hits being taken high up the back from the defender trying to hold up and not allow an easy attempt. Faried took the hits and carried on.
He finished with 13 points and nine rebounds in 27 minutes of action. Six of his nine rebounds came on the offensive glass.
Asked how he felt, Faried said, “sore, scared.”
“I took some hits in the same spot,” Faried said. “I don’t think it was intentional. But I just kept trying, kept giving it a go.”
Follow Chris Dempsey on Twitter @dempseypost or email him at cdempsey@denverpost.com
