Paul broke his right hand in the Portland Trail Blazers’ 98-84 Game 4 win, as the Clippers guard became the second National Basketball Association star to suffer a serious injury in as many days.
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The Los Angeles Clippers didn’t just lose Game 4 of their first-round playoff series against the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday night at the Moda Center.
More than a victory: Blazers even the series as Clippers lose Chris Paul to broken hand: The Los Angeles Clippers lost much more than Game 4 on Monday to the Trail Blazers.
Asked about Griffin, Rivers said, “it doesn’t look great for him either”.
“Hopefully in the next 24-48 hours you turn a corner and feel better, so I’m not really concentrating on how it felt tonight, that’s kind of expected after you tweak something”, Griffin said. Though the 37-year-old forward said Monday that he plans to finish his career as a Maverick unless the team decides to rebuild, Dallas coach Rick Carlisle is still going to recruit him.
If both Chris Paul and Blake Griffin are unable to suit up for the rest of this series, the Clippers are going to be in big trouble, especially with the way Damien Lillard and C.J. McCollum have been playing. He worked all year to get here, and he’s a very emotional guy.
As he made his way to the locker room, Paul was clearly frustrated and upset.
The full extent of the fracture is not yet known, although ESPN’s J.A. Adande has reported that a source tells him the expectation is that Paul will miss the remainder of the playoffs. “Blake got himself going through the flow of what we were doing”.
Game 5 of the Clippers-Blazers series will be this Wednesday, April 27, 7 p.m. Without Chris Paul, the Blazers are now seen as the team to win the best-of-seven series. It wasn’t until the Trail Blazers were able to go on an 18-6 run to start the fourth that they able to put enough separation between themselves and the Clippers to get their deep bench a few minutes before finishing off the 14-point, wire-to-wire victory. He had scored the Clippers’ first 12 points and had scored 16 points with four assists at the time of the injury.
The Blazers out rebounded the Clippers for the second straight game, 58-42.
Bismack Biyombo had 10 points and 16 rebounds for the second-seeded Raptors, who can clinch the first seven-game playoff series victory in franchise history by beating the Pacers in IN on Friday night.
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Rivers said he was more concerned with McCollum and backcourt mate Damian Lillard. The reigning MVP suffered a Grade 1 MCL sprain and will be re-evaluated in two weeks, thus giving the defending-champion Warriors every reason to wonder if they could somehow survive a potential second-round series against the Clippers without him. “Particularly Mason and Ed took that to heart and remember how important rebounding is for us on each end”.
