No &apos;Cut me, Mick&apos; for Heat&apos;s Goran Dragic, who sits out with eye injury   Sun Sentine
Channel: Discover Tv
Date: 12/03/2017

The references to Goran Dragic on the team bus to Sunday night's game against the Indiana Pacers were to fictional pugilists Rocky Balboa and Ivan Drago. But in this case, being forced to sit out due to a gruesome eye injury was a painful reality for the Miami Heat point guard.

Fouled on an inadvertent elbow from Toronto Raptors guard Cory Joseph late in the third quarter of Saturday night's victory at AmericanAirlines Arena, Dragic very much had a "Cut me, Mick" look with his right eye practically swollen shut.
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"You don't know how the eye is going to respond through the night," Dragic said in the locker room at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. "It swelled even more. I can't see. I cannot even see in my right eye. It is what it is."

As bad as Dragic's right eye looked Saturday when he first retreated to the locker room and then returned to the bench for the finish of that blowout victory, it looked as if he went an additional few rounds before arriving at Sunday's game.

"The hit was really strong," he said of the play that drew video inspection from Saturday's officiating staff without an upgrade to a flagrant foul, "so I knew it was going to swell up. But I didn't imagine it's going to be so bad that the right eye is going to be completely closed."

Dragic said he was assured there was no damage to his vision.

"The doctor checked the eye [Saturday] night. He said the eye is fine. It's just swelling," he said.

And, no, Heat trainer Jay Sabol was not willing to do what Sylvester Stallone's Rocky character was able to convince Burgess Meredith's character, corner man Mickey Goldmill, even if it did look as if Dragic went more than a few rounds against Dolph Lundgren's savage Drago character.

"We joked around a little bit," Dragic said. "We mentioned a couple of times to Jay, but he was just saying, 'No, no, no.' But it was nothing serious. Just jokes, jokes about my eye."

But perhaps with a bit of hope of making it out to the court.

"He was probably less than half-joking this morning about cutting the eye so he could seem like Rocky," coach Erik Spoelstra said. "So everybody's calling him Rocky, Drago, everything.
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"He really wanted to be out there to play. But the smart thing to do is to sit him and then hopefully the swelling will go down by Wednesday."

The Heat next play Wednesday night against the visiting New Orleans Pelicans at the start of a five-game homestand.

"We're going to do treatments," Dragic said. "We'll try to put electricity on, try to move this swelling around and hopefully the eye's going to open up. The good thing is the next game is in two days, Wednesday."

The injury is classified as an orbital contusion.

"It's not painful," Dragic said, "it's just pressure."

And limiting.
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"I can see a little bit down," he said, "but I cannot see straight. It's closed."

Dragic was replaced in the starting lineup by Josh Richardson.

It is the first time Dragic has been sidelined since missing three of four games with back spasms in late December and the start of January. He previously missed three games in early November with a sprained left ankle and two games later that month with a strained left elbow.

iwinderman@sunsentinel.com. Follow him at twitter.com/iraheatbeat or facebook.com/ira.winderman

For daily Heat mailbag go to sun-sentinel.com/askira
Copyright © 2017, Sun Sentinel

    Goran Dragic Miami Heat Toronto Raptors Indiana Pacers New Orleans Pelicans Bankers Life Fieldhouse Cory Joseph

  
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