I’m kind of a squeamish person overall. Seeing blood either in person or on TV gives me the heeby-jeebies. Any talk about needles or shots gets me light-headed. I can’t get my blood drawn without passing out. The Kevin Ware leg break video made me not go on the internet for three whole weeks. So I don’t know if it was really necessary for the Raptors broadcast to show multiple up-close gory angles of OG Anunoby’s nosebleed and the medical procedures necessary to get the flow of blood under control. Bloody towels, bloody faces, bloody bits of gauze that look like a bloody chunk of brain just slipped out of Anunoby’s nostril, I don’t need to see any of that. Just get a tasteful angle of the back of Anunoby’s head while the team doctor does what he needs to do.
Anunoby took a lot of punishment this game. When Ian Mahinmi fouled him, I thought his nose was broken. Maybe it is broken, I don’t know. But the way he was just lying there checking to see if his nose was still attached to his face was brutal. Then OG got fouled two more times, and these weren’t gentle fouls either. He hit the deck both times, and after the last one, he was so dazed-looking that I thought he might be concussed. The Raptors’ broadcast was definitely playing up this angle by showing close-up shots of him staggering around the court looking like he didn’t know where he was. Maybe they don’t have concussion protocols in Canada or something.
Remember when Aaron Gordon got a “jaw contusion” (actually a concussion) a while back and that’s why he’s been so garbage lately? Let’s hope that Anunoby isn’t also hiding a concussion. Hiding concussions is not cool. Your brain is important, and if all it takes is one more big hit from a lumbering, out-of-control big man like Ian Mahinmi to give you CTE, you might as well just start playing football.