One player returns from injury and another one goes down. That's been the story of the LA Clippers 2017-18 season.

When they take on the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday night, the Clippers will get forward Danilo Gallinari back from a fractured hand. Unfortunately, they also learned that guard Milos Teodosic would be out for the remainder of the regular season after suffering a tear of the plantar fascia in his left foot.

Gallinari had missed a little over a month with a fractured hand suffered against the Golden State Warriors in the first game after the All-Star break. What was initially ruled a hand contusion was later changed to a non-displaced fracture following an MRI. According to the Italian forward, however, his hand is not 100 percent healed and playing now means he'll have to endure pain while doing so.

“It's feeling better,” Gallinari said before the Clippers took on the Suns on Wednesday night. “It's not 100%, but its feeling better so hopefully next game, I'll be able to experience playing basketball again.

“If I want to play with the hand right now, I'm going to feel pain. The hand is not 100% and the fracture is healing, but it's not 100% so if I want to play, I'm going to feel pain, but the team asked me to play so I'll play.”

As for Teodosic, the Clippers said he would be re-evaluated in two weeks. The NBA's regular season ends on April 11, and two weeks from Friday would be April 13th. That means Teodosic's evaluation and update will likely come only if the Clippers make it to the NBA playoffs. Right now, they're the ninth seed just one game behind the Utah jazz and a game-and-a-half behind the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The Clippers obviously need to win every remaining game on their schedule in order to give themselves the best chance at a playoff seed.