Any hopes for a healthy L.A. Clippers team in the near future will have to be put on hold.

With Blake Griffin already out until possibly the end of January and Patrick Beverley already ruled out for the remainder of the 2017-18 season due to microfracture surgery as well as arthroscopic surgery to repair his right lateral meniscus, the Clippers announced that forward Danilo Gallinari would also miss an extended period of time with a partial tear in his gluteus maximus.

After suffering a strained left glute early in the season and playing on it for a few games, Gallinari got to a point where he could no longer walk without a limp, and decided to rest the injury and come back when he was ready. He played in the first nine games, missed the following 13, and returned to play two games, the second of which saw a breakout performance as a Clipper with 25 points, three rebounds, and two assists against the Washington Wizards.

In the game against the Wizards, Gallinari took a hard fall in the fourth quarter, and I personally asked him about it after the game, he said he was fine. Unfortunately, Galllinari re-aggravated the injury and will be on the sidelines until he's re-evaluated in January.

Gallinari spoke exclusively to ClutchPoints after word of the injury came down from head coach Doc Rivers, where he explained the status of his injury and how to move forward.

“The first injury was a muscle tear,” admitted Gallinari about the strained glute that caused him to miss a month of action. “It was a muscle tear, I rested, and I came back from it. And now it's a muscle tear again.”

When asked about the possibility of surgery, Gallinari ruled that out, saying that he'll just need a lot of rest and rehabilitation to recover from this.

“No, no surgery,” added Gallinari. “It's not a complete tear, just partial tear, so that's a good thing. It'll be a lot of rest and slowly get back into the rehab that we did before.”

“I've never had this type of injury in my career. I've honestly never had any muscle injury before. It was other stuff, you know, the back, the knee. The year [I missed] in Denver was my knee. But muscle, I've never had problems, so this is a weird injury.”

Danilo Gallinari tells ClutchPoints that after seeking multiple opinions and being evaluated by other doctors, he thinks he'll be able to return about six weeks from the original date of his glute injury.

“I've seen different doctors and they didn't see a lot of cases like this,” said Gallinari. “I think it's going to be six weeks. Six weeks from the day of the injury so about another five or so weeks.”

It's been about a week-and-a-half since Gallinari suffered the injury (Saturday, December 9th against the Wizards), and a six-week recovery timetable from that date would have him returning around January 13th when the Clippers host the Sacramento Kings.

For now, all the Clippers can do is wait and take their time with Danilo Gallinari's rehabilitation process to ensure this issue doesn't appear again.