J.J. Redick had seen Chris Paul in pain before—and, more often than not, he'd seen him fight through that pain and keep playing. It wasn't until the second half of the Los Angeles Clippers' Martin Luther King Jr. Day game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, when Paul didn't emerge from the tunnel at Staples Center, that Redick began to worry.
Perhaps a second-quarter tangle with Russell Westbrook had done more than tweak something in the point guard's hand. Perhaps Paul's fit of anger on the way to the locker room had pointed to a repeat of Game 4 against the Portland Trail Blazers in the 2016 NBA playoffs.