The LA Clippers have been ravaged by injuries to start the season, and it hasn't gotten any easier as the team received news that their star Blake Griffin would miss up to eight weeks of action with an MCL sprain in his left knee. Teammate Austin Rivers was tripped up by Los Angeles Lakers guard Lonzo Ball on Monday night, and Rivers came crashing into Griffin's leg.
While the Clippers did take a severe blow to their season, help may soon be on the way. Head Coach Doc Rivers met with members of the media on Wednesday afternoon before practice, and he said that both Danilo Gallinari and Milos Teodosic are close to returning.
“I think both Gallo and Milos are close,” revealed Rivers. “I don't think they'll be out more than 5 to 10 games, but that's a lot of games when you have the other two starters out too.
“Gallo or Milos won't practice [today]. They've gone live, doing the one-on-one stuff, I don't think they're ready to go five-on-five yet.”
Gallinari has missed the last 10 games and has been out since November 5 nursing a strained left glute. He's averaging 12.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 3.0 assists on just 35.5-percent shooting from the field and 26-percent from downtown. Milos Teodosic has missed the last 17 games nursing a plantar fascia injury after playing in the first two games of the season. Teodosic hasn't had a chance at all get a rhythm going in the NBA, scoring just 11 points and dishing eight assists in his two appearances
“The one thing we're never going to do is we're never going to rush a guy back,” said Rivers. “I'm not gonna say, ‘Gallo we need you tomorrow.' We do need him tomorrow. We need Milos, we need Blake, we need Pat, but we're not gonna rush anybody back. Guys are gonna get healthy when they get healthy. At the end of the day, it's the long term, not tomorrow, that we're worried about.”
The good news is a return between the next five-to-ten games means a return sometime between the December 11th game vs. the Raptors and the December 20th matchup against the Phoenix Suns.
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