Kris Dunn hits floor face-first, busts teeth in scary post-dunk fall
The only good thing about not being able to dunk is that you don’t have to worry about someday suffering the same extremely scary fate that befell Chicago Bulls point guard Kris Dunn on Wednesday night:
WTF Dunn dunks and goes down on his face. Teeth are busted I think. pic.twitter.com/laIhJ3ZWTA
— ⓂarcusD (@_MarcusD2_) January 18, 2018
With the Bulls trying to mount a fourth-quarter comeback against the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors, Dunn stole the ball from Klay Thompson, raced down the length of the floor and elevated for a two-hand throwdown that cut the Warriors’ lead to five at 112-107 with 2:55 to play. But after dunking, the Providence product appeared to hold onto the rim a split-second too long before letting go, throwing off the balance on his dismount. Instead of coming down gracefully on his two feet, as he has countless times before, Dunn pitched forward, his legs flailing behind him as his head plummeted toward the baseline.
He got his hands down in front of him, but his momentum was too strong for that to fully break the fall. Dunn smacked face-first into the court, his head snapping back violently as the Warriors quickly inbounded the ball. Bulls rookie Lauri Markkanen took an intentional foul to stop play so that the team’s training staff could go check on Dunn, who rolled onto his back and stayed down, clearly dazed and in pain after his harrowing fall.
They had Dunn sit up and blood dripped from his mouth.
— Steve Aschburner (@AschNBA) January 18, 2018
Dunn is up and walking off under own power but his mouth was full of blood as he sat up.
— K.C. Johnson (@KCJHoop) January 18, 2018
Dunn gets up and immediately is taken to the locker room. #Bulls #BullsNation pic.twitter.com/GjWiUDivnX
— Darnell Mayberry (@DarnellMayberry) January 18, 2018
Ummm I think part of Dunn’s tooth is on the sideline. Oh boy…walking to the locker room
— Vincent Goodwill (@vgoodwill) January 18, 2018
That, as you might expect, ended Dunn’s night. He finished with 16 points on 7-for-17 shooting, five rebounds, four assists and three steals in 30 minutes of work. The Bulls couldn’t complete the comeback bid, as Golden State closed out a 119-112 victory for their franchise-record-tying 14th consecutive win on the road.
According to team radio play-by-play voice Chuck Swirsky, Dunn “chipped and dislocated two front teeth when he fell,” but didn’t actually lose any. That, combined the Bulls’ postgame report that the second-year point guard is “at this time is clear of concussion symptoms,” constitutes at least something of a silver lining in a situation where someone “took a chunk out of the floor” WITH HIS TEETH:
omg Kris Dunn fell so hard on his face that his teeth left a mark on the court pic.twitter.com/G910ogW1KM
— SB Nation (@SBNation) January 18, 2018
Yikes, man. Thank goodness we’re only talking about chipped teeth. That Dunn’s likely only in line for a dentist’s appointment and some rest after a fall like that seems like a miracle.
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Dan Devine is a writer and editor for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@oath.com or follow him on Twitter!
