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Blazers PF Dante Cunningham Takes Elbow To Eye; Leaves Game; Will Not Return

By Ben Golliver
Dante Cunningham uploaded this <a href="http://yfrog.com/gz7jfgrj" target="new">picture of his face</a> to Twitter after the game.
Dante Cunningham uploaded this picture of his face to Twitter after the game.

With roughly nine minutes to go in the second quarter of a Saturday night game between the Portland Trail Blazers and Cleveland Cavaliers, Blazers power forward Dante Cunningham took an elbow from Cavaliers forward Samardo Samuels to the right side of his face.  Cunningham fell to the ground, was attended to by Portland's medical staff and left the game and the court at the first dead ball. 

The Blazers informed the media just before halftime that Cunningham would not return to the game, saying only that Cunningham "sustained an elbow to his right eye."

After the game, Cunningham tweeted, "I'm good PDX thank u for the love great win boys!!! Broken face nothing crazy on the way to PDX longest flight ever."

Cunningham is a second-year player out of Villanova. He is averaging 4.9 points and 3.2 rebounds in 19.5 minutes per game. Cunningham made his fifth start of the season on Saturday night.

The Blazers next play at home on Monday against the Chicago Bulls. Cunningham's injury leaves Portland with LaMarcus Aldridge, Joel Przybilla, Sean Marks and rookie Luke Babbitt as healthy frontcourt players.

Here's video of the blow in question.

Updates when they become available.

-- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com | Twitter

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