The Cavs were 4-0 since Kevin Love returned from his hand injury. Then in the first quarter of the Cavs game against the Miami Heat, Love took an elbow to the face from Jordan Mickey, left the game and the Cavs ended up losing 79-98.
The following shot of Love's loose tooth (no Banana Republic ads for a while) is probably the best tooth shot we have had since his former childhood and Cavs teammate Isaiah Thomas had a tooth knocked out in last year's playoffs series against the Wizards.
But the award for most painful looking current shot of a tooth getting knocked out goes to Kris Dunn and his scary fall against the Warriors. He hit the floor so hard, he actually damaged the floor!
The award for most damage by a tooth goes to Wilson Chandler, who left a piece of his tooth in David Lee's elbow, causing an infected hole that actually turned into a career-threatening injury.
Here’s Lee, Via an interview with KNBR in San Franicso, talking about the severity of the injury.
On his injury:
“This injury went from something that I thought was going to be a two-day situation to all of a sudden they were saying ‘we might have to cut your triceps muscle and you’re never going to play again,’ to ‘you’re fine.’ It was a very scary situation, and I learned how serious infection can be. Looking back on it, I think the only way we could have prevented was by not going back in the game in New York and just sitting out. And at that point, there was nothing that indicated it was going to be very serious, so that wasn’t really an option.”
On potentially having to have his triceps muscle cut out of his arm:
“It got to the point where they said if we can’t find the right antibiotics to counter the bacteria that you’re going to have to start getting things cut out of your arm, and you may never have the same arm to play basketball again. My left arm was my shooting arm. And really, I was only out for two and a half weeks, so all of this happened in that short of a time period, so it happened quick. I was just in disbelief half the time. I’m just glad the worst didn’t occur and I’m back able to help the team now.”
Here's a few more examples of players losing teeth during games, including Goran Dragic, Aaron Brooks, Dennis Schroder and Dirk knocking three teeth out of the mouth of Carl Landry.