Jazz star Donovan Mitchell left the team’s game against Indiana on Friday afternoon after turning his right ankle. Although the injury looked scary at the time, the Jazz got some positive early news, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, who tweets that X-rays on the ankle were negative.
The Jazz and Mitchell aren’t out of the woods yet, as he’ll undergo an MRI on his right ankle to determine the severity of the injury, per Wojnarowski. Still, it’s a lower ankle sprain and there’s some early optimism that it won’t be a major injury, sources tell Woj (Twitter link).
A significant injury to Mitchell would be a devastating blow to the Jazz, who own the NBA’s best record at 41-14, entering today. The All-Star guard has been Utah’s leading scorer by a wide margin, posting a career-best 26.5 points per game on .438/.385/.842 shooting in 52 games (33.7 MPG).
Assuming Mitchell has to miss some time, the Jazz figure to lean more heavily on veteran guards Mike Conley and Jordan Clarkson. Depth pieces like Miye Oni and Matt Thomas would be among the other candidates for increased roles.
This is lucky timing for the Lakers who play them tomorrow and Monday.
Still down 2 all-stars… Championship teams don’t worry about other teams business, only their own. I guarantee if the Lakers sat in 7th or 8th place they’d be rushing Lebron and AD back into the lineup but for now they seem content with where they are in the standings
Dude chill, I know your rockets have been terrible, but watching other team’s schedule in advance is too much even for a hater
Mans doesn’t wanna play if he can’t battle Murray lol
This is a shame! Mitchell and the Jazz have been playing some awesome ball (and fun to watch as long as they are not playing your team lol). Hopefully this is not major and he won’t miss any time. Having the 1 seed is important, we’ll see if they can hold on to it.
Everything is coming up Lakers recently muhaha
How is this helping the Lakers beyond their next two games exactly? Maybe if Mitchell is out for the rest of the season (extremely unlikely) and Utah were to fall to #3 and the Lakers don’t fall lower than the #6 seed, then LA might get out of the first round allowing their two star players more time to get back into game shape.
Should be out a couple of gms. Maybe Suns can make up ground. I wouldn’t rush Spida back, why right.
Imagine Suns come out of West #1 seed. That would be incredible lols.
Suns vs Clippers
In The WCF?
The NBAs version of hell or high water
would be fun but clippers depth would be too much tbh
Way too many injuries…
like clockwork, the lakers competition are falling apart in route to another easy ring. Kawhi or PG will be up next