Via Detroit News:

AUBURN HILLS — Pistons rookie guard Rodney Stuckey will be out for at least six weeks after undergoing successful surgery Thursday to repair his fractured left (non-shooting) hand.

The operation was performed by Dr. John Wagner at Oakland Regional Hospital.

The injury occurred Wednesday night, as Stuckey was playing against the Washington Wizards at The Palace in a preseason game. Stuckey was coming off a screen, and his left hand became tangled in a Washington player’s uniform.

Stuckey continued to move left, the defender cut to the right, and his left hand twisted. The result was immediate pain, with Stuckey heading to the Pistons bench holding his limp left hand.

He was taken a few minutes later to the Pistons’ locker room, where X-rays revealed possible multiple fracture sites in his hand.

Well there ya have it. Hopefully everything heals correctly and quickly.

[box score] The Pistons were able to bring their record to .500 in thier preseason finale vs. the Wizards at the Palace, but it came at the expense of Rodney Stuckey’s broken hand.

With all the reaction I’ve been reading this morning it’s pretty evident that the Nation is bummed. The Pistons were relying heavily on their youth movement and it’s been one set back after another. Amir made his debut last night in limited minutes after he spained his ankle in practice back on October 5th which caused him to miss nearly all of training camp. Now we’ll wait and see how long Stuckey is going to be out. We may not see what our youth is really capable of until after the first of the year at this rate. This likely means Flip Murray will be our primary back up for Chauncey, also Lindsey Hunter might see more minutes than he bargained for coming into this season.

GAME NOTES:

• Amir Johnson logged 15 minutes scoring 7 points on 3/3 shooting, also grabbing a couple of boards
• The Pistons shot better from the 3pt line (66.7%, 10/15) than they did from the FT line (52.6%, 10/19)
• Jarvis Hayes had a nice night against the team that made him a lottery pick. He scored 21 points while going 8/13 from the floor
• J-Max had 10 boards, 9 of them came on the defensive glass
• Chauncey Billups was an assist away from a double-double. He scored 12 points
• Stuckey was having a good game before getting his hand jammed up. 10 points on 5/7 shooting, 4 boards, 0 turn overs in 14 minutes of play
• Rasheed scored 17 with 7 boards in 20 minutes
• Flip Murray recorded 8 assists
• Rip sat out with his ankle sprain, but he should be ready to go for the regular season opener on Nov. 1st



QUOTES:

Flip Saunders on Stuckey’s injury:

“Unfortunately we will have to wait and see what transpires tomorrow when we get a chance to really look at him, evaluate him, make decisions on what the time table is. It’s really disappointing, he was playing unbelievable today too. I said to our coaches during one of our time outs it looks like tonight like he really got it. He shot the ball when had open shots, he penetrated when he could penetrate, worked hard defensively and by far I thought it was his best stint as a point guard.”

Stuckey on his set back:

“It’s always disappointing when you break something or have to sit out,” Stuckey said. “But I’ll bounce back. It’s not going to be that long. It’s only going to make me get better.”