During the Miami Heat’s December 30 loss to the Boston Celtics at the TD Garden, Hassan Whiteside felt a great deal of pain as Jae Crowder’s finger ended up in his eye.

Since sustaining the incident, the Heat center has missed four games due to a retinal contusion. Whiteside has experienced double vision and headaches and it’s safe to say his eye still didn’t look quite right as he spoke to the media on Friday:

After not previously being allowed to fly with the team, Whiteside appreciates that he needs to treat eye injuries with caution, per Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel:

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“They were just worried about if I got hit in there again it could really mess with my retina and that could require surgery,” he said. “But, thankfully, I didn't have a detached retina, so everything came out OK.

“It's a lot better,” he said. “The headaches went away. I'm not seeing double anymore. I can see a lot better and a lot of the pain went away. I never had an eye injury, either, so it was a different experience.”

Whilst his eye still doesn’t look healthy, Whiteside isn’t too worried:

“It’s just a bruise, so it will heal up over time.”