WASHINGTON –- Paul Pierce tried to put up a confident front.

He had to. But like his nickname, Pierce knows the truth of the situation. The Washington Wizards' budding hopes and dreams of reaching a conference finals and (gasp!) perhaps even the NBA Finals for the first time since 1979 are now as fractured as John Wall's cracked left hand and wrist.

The Wizards revealed on Thursday that their franchise quarterback has five non-displaced fractures in his injured left wrist and hand.

"To play so well throughout these playoffs, to hear that type of news, I know it is devastating," Pierce said of Wall.

The team said it has yet to determine Wall's status for the best-of-seven series, which resumes on Saturday tied 1-1.

But let's face it, the news felt like a deathblow. Actually, Wall's five non-displaced fractures felt like D.C. had been struck with the "Five-Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique."

Perhaps over the next few days or later in this series, Washington will get some unexpected good news. But even if the swelling in his hand were to go down and Wall were somehow cleared to play, Washington would be trying to win with its best player injured and at a disadvantage.

Pierce suffered a non-displaced fracture of the third metacarpal in his right shooting hand in 2013 as a Net. Initially diagnosed with a recovery timetable of two to four weeks, Pierce missed just four games and returned 11 days later to play with a glove on his hand. But that was a single non-displaced fracture, not five.

The Wizards don't play again until Saturday, which will be nearly a week after Wall suffered his injury. And Game 4 will be Monday. But so much of Wall's game requires his left hand, whether it be his nasty crossover dribble or needing it to brace his falls when he attacks the rim at warp speed. And what if a Hawks player happens to come down on his hand/wrist during a game?

Trying to win a playoff game without your best player is difficult enough, let alone trying to win a playoff series, especially at this stage of the postseason.

Sure, the Hawks are beatable. Washington not only proved that in Game 1 with Wall, but it almost proved it without Wall in Game 2. But even if the Wizards somehow get by Atlanta, they would have a slim chance of winning the conference finals without Wall or even with him at less than 100 percent.

Pierce and Bradley Beal tried their best to let everyone know that nothing's changed.

"By no means do we feel like this series is over or our goals change," Pierce said. "We will continue to go out there and reach for our goals."

But the heights they could've reached just got a lot shorter without Wall.

The point guard somehow stayed in the game after crashing down so hard on his left wrist trying to avoid Jeff Teague on a drive to the rim that he initially thought it was broken. He felt a similar pain when he fractured it in high school. X-rays after Game 1 proved to be negative, and the Wizards thought they had dodged a bullet.

Heck, Beal looked like a bigger concern after landing on Al Horford's foot in the fourth quarter and spraining his foot so bad that he was reduced to tears walking back to the locker room in the same game.

"John's hit the floor millions of times," Wizards coach Randy Wittman said. "And bounces [right back] up."

But Wall's fears proved to be true. His hand swelled up so bad that the Washington Post's Michael Lee aptly likened it to seeing Eddie Murphy transform into Sherman Klump in "The Nutty Professor."

It looked as if his hand had been stung. Tortured Bullets-Wizards fans around here will undoubtedly believe that it was stung -– by "The Curse O' Les Boulez."

Coined by longtime Washington Post columnist Tony Kornheiser, the Bullets/Wizards curse features decades of crippling injuries, personnel blunders and just rotten luck. No one is immune to the curse, not even His Airness Michael Jordan, who couldn't get the Wizards to the playoffs or get the No. 1 overall pick right (Kwame Brown) during his stop here.

Forget about the injuries prolific scorers such as Bernard King and Gilbert Arenas suffered during their Washington tenures. This is a franchise that saw Gheorghe Muresan eventually need back surgery after filming "My Giant" with Billy Crystal the summer after the then-Bullets made the playoffs in 1997. Big Gheorghe was basically done after that.

The past three decades of Washington basketball has been like a long-running stand-up act that never runs out of material. But you wanted to believe that things were changing these past two postseasons.

"It is definitely difficult for the team, but I am sure it is even more devastating for John. ... I'm more hurt for him than anything because I know how badly he wants to be out there." Paul Pierce

Wall and Beal are showing so much promise, reaching the second round for the second straight year. Wall was showcasing his skills and proving that the former No. 1 overall pick was ready to take that next step in his career. He was averaging 17.4 points, 12.6 assists and 1.4 blocks in the playoffs and had four consecutive double-doubles before missing Game 2.

Pierce said that when Wall plays like this, he is the best point guard in the league.

"It is definitely difficult for the team, but I am sure it is even more devastating for John," Pierce said. "... I'm more hurt for him than anything because I know how badly he wants to be out there."

The Wizards will turn to backup Ramon Sessions, who was impressive filling in for Wall in Game 2, scoring 21 points. But Sessions said Thursday was the first time this season that he got to practice with the entire first team.

Wall hasn't been officially ruled out, as the team said it was still trying to determine his status with medical consultation.

Wittman called Wall the toughest kid he has been around in his entire basketball career. Perhaps the swelling will go down and the Wizards will get some good news.

"Who knows how long something like that is going to stay," Wittman said. "His hand is just so big, it can't handle the ball.

"He can't control anything."

Wittman was talking about the swelling in Wall's hand.

Unfortunately, he easily could have been talking about a certain curse, as well.