Iverson out with fractured thumb

Allen Iverson, the NBA scoring leader, will miss 3-6 weeks with a broken thumb on his shooting hand.

Allen Iverson, the NBA scoring leader, will miss 3-6 weeks with a broken thumb on his shooting hand.

Iverson, who has never been on the injured list, was hurt in the first half of the Philadelphia 76ers' 94-91 loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Monday night. He played the rest of the game, scoring 35 points but missing 21 of 34 shots.

"I don't know what to say," said Iverson, choking back tears. "All I know is, this is all I got out of the new rules - this and getting called for palming a whole lot. People said the new rules are supposed to help guys with games like mine. This is all I got out of it, a whole bunch of injuries."

Iverson, taking issue with new rules that were supposed to limit defenders on the perimeter, believes he was hurt in the second quarter when he took the worst of several hard falls.

Iverson, the league's defending scoring champion, had X-rays today and was fitted with a cast. The break is in a small bone that is attached to a ligament in the thumb, team doctor Jack McPhilemy said.

"The soonest he would be able to get back to playing basketball would be three weeks," McPhilemy said.

Iverson, leading the league with a 30.8 scoring average, has missed only 10 games in three-plus seasons since the Sixers drafted him No 1 in 1996.

"It's a killer," Sixers coach Larry Brown said. "He's playing great. He's a major part of our team. It's pretty devastating."

The 76ers fell to 5-7 with the loss to the Spurs. They have numerous other injuries, with center Matt Geiger out until December following arthroscopic knee surgery.