It’s been a bumpy couple of weeks for Portland Trail Blazers guard Scoot Henderson.
First, he missed two games with a left quad contusion. Then Henderson missed a game after suffering a back strain during a minor car accident in Houston. He returned the following game only to reaggravate his quad injury and miss four additional games.
All told, Henderson missed seven of eight games before playing in Sunday’s loss at the Los Angeles Lakers, an opponent that brought a smile to his face.
“It’s a team you always want to play against,” Henderson said. “First game back, it felt good. Just trying to get back in my groove.”
Henderson scored 13 points in 21 minutes off the bench against the Lakers. At the Pacers, however, Henderson produced 17 points with nine assists while going 6 of 11 from the field and 3 of 4 from beyond the arc. Easily, that was one of his best outings of the season. Then the quad injury returned.
Through it all, Henderson said he remained stoic, even after the accident, which occurred while on his way to meet up with teammates.
“I was in an Uber, and the person behind us hit us,” Henderson said. “Back and hip, they kind of flared up a bit.”
The accident wasn’t severe, Henderson said, but the collision gave him a jolt.
“It wasn’t a crazy car accident,” Henderson said. “It was pretty weird because I haven’t been in that situation, especially in an Uber on the way to hang with my teammates at the mall.”
Henderson, who wore sweatpants and a hoodie at the time, said he didn’t believe the Uber driver knew who he was.
Getting over the back injury just to have the quad injury return challenged Henderson’s resolve.
“That was a weird couple of days,” he said. “At that time, I was like, ‘Damn!’ It’s not like I could get mad. It was just a series of events. Life be like that. Just got to get through it.”
-- Aaron Fentress | afentress@Oregonian.com | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook)