The Los Angeles Clippers have been playing pretty good basketball lately as they have won six of their last nine games and look to be finding themselves with the playoffs approaching. The Clippers are worried about the workload of star point guard Chris Paul but they have no choice but to play him huge minutes while Blake Griffin is out. Griffin has now missed 28 games and he is still without a timetable for a return from his broken hand, according to Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times.
Griffin has reportedly been shooting for at least a week which is a good sign that progress is being made but a return date still has not been set. The expectation has been that the best case scenario would be a return in late March and that still seems to hold true. There is still a possibility that Griffin may miss the rest of the regular season.
Although shooting the basketball would seem to indicate that a return is close head coach Doc Rivers downplayed that notion, according to Dan Woike of The Orange County Register. Rivers said that Griffin is only shooting a basketball and that he is still "not close or anything." Griffin had surgery on the hand about five weeks ago and the full timetable has reportedly been closer to two months all along.
There is a little silver lining in Griffin missing all of this time due to his broken hand. Before he broke his hand Griffin was sidelined with a partially torn quad so this lengthy absence from the court has likely allowed that injury to fully heal. The Clippers have gone 21-7 with Griffin out but they still expect his return, whenever that is, to give them a big boost and help them push for a deep playoff run.
In 30 games this season Griffin is averaging 23.2 points, 8.7 rebounds and 5 assists per game while shooting 51 percent from the field. The record says they're better without him but those are some big numbers he puts up. It is also important to remember that Griffin will miss four extra games after being cleared to return due to a suspension the Clippers handed down for the incident in which he broke his hand.
