The Detroit Pistons will be without All-Star forward Blake Griffin in Game 1 of their first round series against the Milwaukee Bucks as he continues to recover from a sore left knee.
No Blake Griffin in G1 for Pistons, Dwane Casey says. Aching knee too sore.
— Steve Aschburner (@AschNBA) April 14, 2019
Blake Griffin has been dealing with the injury since the last week of March, and he's been in and out of the line-up since. The Pistons are 2-5 without him, so they are expected to get their hands full against the league-best Bucks.
Although Detroit had listed Griffin as questionable against the Bucks, it seems that they were already preparing to play without him for at least the beginning of their best-of-seven series against Milwaukee. Even the 30-year old forward sounded like he's already looking at the possibility that he could miss a couple of games because of the injury.
In his interview with Vince Ellis of Detroit Free Press, Griffin admitted that he wants to play; however, he also seemed satisfied with the fact that his team made the playoffs.
“You never want to let your teammates down and not be out there, but at the same time we’ve built a foundation this season and we’ve started to play the right brand of basketball. Those types of things carry over. Our goal was the reach the playoffs and we accomplished that goal so at the end of the day, we’re right where we want to be.”
Without Griffin, Andre Drummond is expected to play a larger role for the Pistons. Thon Maker, Zaza Pachulia, and Jon Leuer could also see increased minutes for Detroit.
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