Clippers hope to get superior news about Paul George right before showdown with Lakers

The most consequential result Friday for the Clippers will not be the last rating of that night’s sport in opposition to the Lakers.

Previously in the working day Clippers star wing Paul George will undertake an MRI on his injured ideal elbow that has sidelined him considering the fact that tearing the ulnar collateral ligament Dec. 22.

The Clippers have cautioned that the MRI is just 1 aspect in analyzing whether George can ramp up his on-court action in planning for a return. Lawrence Frank, president of basketball operations, explained previously this thirty day period the final result would not signify a “eureka minute for what we do.”

Continue to, a clean up consequence could surely sign optimism that George’s restoration might acquire velocity. A TNT report previously this thirty day period indicated George could be prepared to participate in by the 1st 7 days of March need to his test go perfectly. Lue has not verified if that would be the case. But with the Clippers eighth in the Western Convention standings, 1½ video games forward of the Lakers and both groups perhaps sure for the participate in-in event, the group would gladly welcome the return of their leading scorer if George feels he is prepared to return to the lineup for the extend run, with 21 games to play.

“I give those people men credit, mainly because I have been in predicaments where guys been out for a lengthy time, and you really do not know when they’re coming back, and it can just have on on you,” mentor Tyronn Lue said. “But these fellas, they just go on to struggle every one evening. And so they’ve absolutely made my task a great deal easier.”

Requested how the workforce could possibly reintegrate any of George, Norman Powell or Kawhi Leonard back into the lineup this year if they are healthier, guard Terance Mann reported, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” incorporating that “I don’t believe any of these men is coming back again whenever soon, at the very least Norm and Kawhi.”

The Lakers surely won’t truly feel sorry for the Clippers. Their three-headliner core of LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook has been healthful for just a single of these rivals’ earlier two conferences this year, and Davis will miss out on Friday’s sport, as very well. Still though the Lakers have struggled mightily to come across their rhythm amid lacking pieces, the Clippers have proven flashes of previous year’s roster that thrived on very long odds by engineering comebacks of 24, 25 and a franchise-record 35 points because George’s personal injury. Lue credited the segment of his roster that is wholesome with approaching a time of jumbled lineups as a problem instead than a burden.

They own the NBA’s seventh-most effective net rating, the difference in details scored and allowed for each 100 belongings, considering the fact that the Feb. 10 trade deadline, a span that consists of heading 3-1 because guard Powell, obtained Feb. 4 in a trade with Portland, fractured the medial sesamoid bone in his still left foot just three games soon after joining his new team.

“These fellas every night have been fighting and competing,” Lue reported. “The conditions that we’ve been place in, we have completed a superior career of just being afloat, currently being the eighth seed with 21 video games to go and ideally have a chance to be in that enjoy-in scenario and see what we can do.”

Powell’s foot remained in a strolling boot at the team’s Thursday apply as he took limited-range pictures. Lue said the Clippers “need him back” for the stress Powell’s drives put on defenses at the rim.

“Everybody’s video game has developed a lot” while compensating for George’s absence, Mann said. “Especially going into the [all-star] crack, everybody was actively playing rather properly. So possessing [George] come back, I’m absolutely sure he’s gonna be content that everyone has self confidence in their game and what their skill is to do out there on the ground for us. So getting him there is just gonna be a additionally, for guaranteed.”