Norman Powell will sit out of the L.A. Clippers’ Saturday matchup against the Orlando Magic, and he’ll be out for a “little bit longer” per head coach Ty Lue.
Powell is set to miss his sixth straight game for Los Angeles as he remains recovering from his left shoulder subluxation injury which he sustained earlier this month in a loss against the Golden State Warriors.
“We always have concerns because Norm’s a big part of what we’ve done all year,” Lue said, per Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. “When a guy’s out this long and then you kind of go on a streak and you’re playing good basketball, you’re always concerned about it. But he sees how we’re playing.”
As the club’s sixth man, Powell has been vital for the Clippers all season long. Averaging 16.6 points in 47.5 percent shooting, he stands as L.A.’s primary reserved spark plug who assumed a tertiary scoring role behind stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
With him unavailable to play, both Eric Gordon and Terance Mann helped the Clippers in shouldering the workload left by Powell splendidly. As such, with 12 games left to their season and they are sizzling hot with four-game win streak en route to the West’s fifth-seed, Lue maintains his stand that Powell can still be plugged to the team easily as he continues his recovery process which matters the most
“We’re playing the right way and he’s been great for us all year, and so it shouldn’t — it won’t be hard to incorporate him back,” Lue added. “Just getting him healthy is the most important thing, and we just want to make sure he gets enough games in so it won’t happen like it did last year when he had to come back for those last two play-in games — he had no rhythm … and so it really was unfair to him. So just hoping we can get him back sooner than later.”
