Rowan Kavner
UTAH – Blake Griffin did not make the trip to Utah for the Clippers’ match-up Saturday night against the Jazz and will miss at least the rest of the team’s current five-game road trip with a partially torn quad tendon suffered in the Clippers’ Christmas win against the Lakers.
The injury occurred on a drive to the basket in the first quarter Friday night, and an MRI revealed the partial tear Saturday morning. Griffin will begin a recovery and treatment plan and will be re-evaluated in two weeks.
Despite the injury occurring early in the game against the Lakers, Griffin played the rest of the night, finishing with 13 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in 36 minutes. The 13 points marked his lowest total of the month after scoring at least 15 points in each of his previous 11 games in December.
Griffin, who missed time last year after surgery for a staph infection in his elbow, had not missed any of the Clippers’ first 30 games of the year.
He leads the team with 23.2 points per game and is second on the team in both rebounds per game (8.7) and assists per game (5.0). Griffin is also among the top vote-getters after the first returns of All-Star voting, trailing only Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant among the West’s frontcourt players.
