COVID-19, hand, shoulder: Suns’ Chris Paul endured to reach NBA Finals

A pseudo-elbow that Chris Paul took from DeMarcus Cousins on Wednesday night may have led to embellishing on the Suns point guard’s part.

But there’s no doubt that aside from any pain endured on that play, Paul has taken his licks with injuries and bad luck in waves this postseason. Yet, he enters July with his first NBA Finals appearance in his 16-year career secured.

Paul one-armed his way through the first-round series against the Lakers, got right for a sweep of the Nuggets, sat out two games against the Clippers due to COVID-19, only to return and — at some point — injure ligaments in his hand.

The public just didn’t know about that last item until after Phoenix punched an NBA Finals ticket with a Game 6 Western Conference Finals win against the Clippers.

“What was it, Game 3? I find out I tore some ligaments in my hand,” Paul said following the Suns’ 130-103 win on Wednesday. “I said, ‘Oh, here we go.’ But you just — I got an unbelievable team around me. A lady named Anne, you’ve probably seen her. I hugged her when I walked off the court. She’s been at every road game, home game, working on me just trying to get me right for every game. So I’m appreciative to my team around me. My chef, all this.

“It’s a gang. It’s a real live gang that puts it all together.”

Paul first revealed that something hadn’t been right in his postgame interview with ESPN’s Rachel Nichols following Game 6. He said he required an MRI on his wrist on Tuesday.

“Last two, three games I’ve been playing with my fingers buddy taped, these two,” Paul said. “I did shootaround today. I said, I ain’t doing that, I ain’t doing that tonight. Book said he wasn’t playing with his mask on either. So it was good to see it all come together.”

It’s unclear if Paul’s wrist, hand and the taped middle and index fingers are related to one another.

Paul had averaged 25.5 points on 62% shooting against Denver in the conference semifinals only to return from his COVID-19-caused absence against the Clippers with three poor shooting performances in a row.

Despite going 67% from the field in Game 6, Paul still only hit 41% of his shots over the four games he played against Los Angeles.

“Man, it’s been a lot,” Paul said. “I told you I was getting an MRI yesterday on my wrist and had all these surgeries over the years.”

Whether it was his rehab work on whatever injuries he still suffers from or just straight will, Paul clearly played determined basketball to push the Suns to their first NBA Finals since 1993. He finished Wednesday with 41 points and hit 7-of-8 from three-point range — this after going 2-for-16 from deep over his first three games played in the series.

“I’ve told you guys from the jump I wanted to stay out of his way,” Suns head coach Monty Williams said of Paul. “There were questions about his production before tonight, and in my heart I felt like it was a matter of time. I didn’t know it was going to be like that, but that’s who Chris is.

“He was tired and he was still making those kinds of plays — getting to the basket, the threes, orchestrating everything.”

Paul came into this season carrying a lengthy injury history that submarined past playoff appearances with contending teams.

During 2015 as a member of the Clippers, a hamstring injury kept him out of Games 1 and 2 of the conference semifinals. Los Angeles split those games before it lost a 3-1 lead and fell to the Houston Rockets.

In 2016, the point guard broke his hand in Game 4 of a first-round matchup against the Portland Trail Blazers. Paul’s Clippers were tied 2-2 at that point but dropped Games 5 and 6 with the point guard sidelined.

Two years later when he was with the Rockets, another hamstring issue cropped up for Paul during his only conference finals appearance before this season. Houston led the Golden State Warriors 3-2 in the Western Conference Finals, but the hamstring ordeal took Paul out of the final two games of the series. The Warriors won both games and went on to win the NBA title via a Finals sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

“When we started the series, even before the series started I got the call, you know, ‘Hey, Chris might be out,'” Williams said. “Your heart sinks for a second because you’re like, man, like, not right now. You know what I mean? But after talking to him and talking to the team, and watching Jae and Book and those guys grow in their leadership roles and hold it down until Chris could get back, it’s just been an emotional ride for us, just in this series alone. But we have dealt with it the whole playoffs.

“I mean, in the Laker series he gets a stinger, or whatever that was in the shoulder,” Williams added. “He’s playing with half of his body basically. He’s playing with one arm. So I told our guys, everything you want is on the other side of hard. You just have to continue to persevere as best you can and not give up, and hopefully something good is on the other side.”

Now, there’s no “hopefully.”

The Suns can see the Larry O’Brien Trophy in their reach.

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