CHICAGO -- Golden State Warriors forward David Lee will not play Thursday night against the Chicago Bulls due to an infection in his left arm.
Lee was involved in a collision during Wednesday night's game against the New York Knicks when his elbow inadvertantly struck Knicks guard Wilson Chandler in the teeth. A piece of Chandler's tooth was impaled in Lee's arm during the incident, but the veteran forward continued to play, finishing with a season-high 28 points and 10 rebounds against his former team.
"They found a little portion of [the tooth] in the arm [Wednesday] night and they had to remove that," Lee said. "This morning I woke up to unbearable pain."
Lee spent the morning in a Chicago emergency room with Bulls team doctors. He was given an IV with antibiotics and says he is hopeful he can play Saturday in Milwaukee.
"I'm already starting to feel better after the antibiotics," Lee said. "Hopefully, this will just be something I'll be able to play [with] on Saturday in Milwaukee, but I don't have much movement in the arm for tonight. so it's going to be tough."
Lee and Chandler have already started joking about the incident a little bit.
"Wilson's a good friend of mine," Lee said. "I gave him a 'Sorry about your tooth," [he gave me] a 'Sorry about [your] arm' exchange when he got back. He had surgery [Wednesday] night to replace his tooth because he was in worse shape than I was. You never want to see that happen, but unfortunately, it's a part of the game."
Nick Friedell covers the Bulls for ESPNChicago.com and ESPN 1000.