JR Smith was supposed to play last night with a protective mask. At the last minute he decided not to play. The reason was that he felt the mask just didn’t fit right and he didn’t want to lose his vision:
J.R. Smith tried to make it work. For a good 30 minutes before Wednesday night’s game against Sacramento, he made his way around the perimeter, trying to get his game going while wearing his new protective plastic mask.
Less than an hour before game time, however, he decided the mask just wasn’t fitting the way he wanted and it wasn’t worth the risk. “I’m not gonna play tonight,” Smith said. “I’ll wait it out and hopefully it heals more within the next week and I get more comfortable wearing it.”
“Yeah, it’s way too risky to play without it,” he said. “For the consequences to get hit again in that spot, I can lose my vision and I don’t want that and nobody else would want that. So I’ll just wait it out, wait one game.”
I guess it’s better safe than sorry. The Knicks could have used him though since they lost to the Kings and Raymond Felton was bored in the huddle.