Thunder injury report: SGA, Dort, Maledon in; Roby, Horford out; Bazley questionable
The Oklahoma City Thunder lacked guards and relied on the play of bigs on Friday night against the Minnesota Timberwolves. They may have the opposite dilemma on Saturday.
Guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (left knee sprain), wing Lu Dort (left knee soreness) and guard Theo Maledon (COVID-19 health and safety protocol) will all return after missing the game on Friday.
Meanwhile, center Al Horford will be out for rest purposes on the second night of a back-to-back. He has been held out each time this happened so far this season.
Big Isaiah Roby will also miss the game due to foot soreness. Daigneault said Roby couldn’t pinpoint how the pain started but that it seems to the health department like wear-and-tear during a quick turnaround.
Power forward Darius Bazley is similarly experiencing what Daigneault called wear-and-tear. He is questionable with back soreness and will be a game-time decision.
Daigneault said he didn’t think these were based on “individual plays where there was an event” that resulted in an injury the way Dort or Gilgeous-Alexander got hurt.
All three of those bigs started on Friday, a 106-103 loss to the Timberwolves.
Gilgeous-Alexander missed two games after tweaking his knee during the Feb. 1 game against the Houston Rockets.
Dort suffered an injury in the first quarter of the Feb. 3 game against the Rockets. He missed the final three quarters of that contest and did not play on Friday.
Maledon missed just one game to health and safety protocols.
