Paul George suffers serious leg injury in USA scrimmage

Posted: Aug 1, 2014 / 10:46 PM EDT

Updated: Aug 2, 2014 / 12:14 AM EDT

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Indiana Pacers All-Star Paul George suffered a very serious-looking leg injury on Friday night in a USA Basketball exhibition.

While playing for the blue team in a intrasquad scrimmage, George chased down James Harden in the fourth quarter in an attempt to block a lay-up. He was injured while landing when his lower-right leg snapped against the support that the holds up the backboard of the hoop (known as a stanchion).

George was awake and alert as he was carried off the court on a stretcher. George’s leg was put in an air cast, and he was taken to the Hospital for Special Surgery in Las Vegas following the incident.

The game was cancelled.

Following his trip to the hospital, Paul George released a tweet saying “Thanks everybody for the love and support.. I’ll be ok and be back better than ever!!! Love y’all!! #YoungTrece”.

Pacers President of Basketball Operations Larry Bird just sent out a message regarding the injury.

“”We are aware of the injury sustained by Paul George in Friday night’s Team USA game in Las Vegas and we are obviously greatly concerned. At this time our thoughts and prayers are with Paul. We are still gathering details and will have an updated statement Saturday.”

In a press conference following the game, the Head Coach of Team USA Mike Krzyzewski was visibly shaken, and gave his thoughts on the injury.

“I want to thank the crowd here for understanding what was most important,” said Krzyzewski.

“In saying that Paul’s family is with him, Kevin Pritchard (Pacers General Manager) is with him. He is hopefully at the hospital right now, which is where we want to be very quick here. Everything is on hold. Everything is on hold right now and it should be. It would be so inappropriate for us to talk about anything else when there is a serious injury like this.”

The Director of Team USA Basketball Jerry Colangelo had this to say about the injury:

“Our primary concern is Paul George,” said Colangelo. “I want to reach out to the Pacers organization and ower Herb Simon, because this is a tough blow for not only USA Basketball but for the Indiana Pacers. So as an organization, we are just going to let a little bit of a time go by before we address anything like rosters and all of that stuff. It seems so unimportant in the big scheme of things when you have something like this takes place. It puts things into perspective.”

Players and organizations across the league have taken to social media to send their sentiments to Paul George.