STAPLES CENTER, LOS ANGELES, CA — Upon entering morning shootaround at the Staples Center today, the Golden State Warriors PR team announced to reporters that Festus Ezeli would be out for tonight’s Christmas game against the Los Angeles Clippers due to a sprained left ankle suffered in a loss to the Los Angeles Lakers two nights ago on December 23rd. Ezeli said that he injured the ankle in the second quarter and tweaked it further in the third.
Warriors PR also reported that Ezeli’s X-ray results were negative and that he would undergo an MRI tomorrow.
When Bay Area News Group reporter Diamond Leung asked Festus about hurting his ankle on “Festivus”, a “secular holiday celebrated on December 23rd” and created by the writers of Seinfeld, Ezeli replied, “I don’t know if that’s bad luck or what.”
“JoHan (Wang, Warriors trainer) called me yesteday and told me the ankle had swelled up quite a bit,” head coach Steve Kerr said later at shootaround.
“Ankle’s really swollen,” Ezeli told Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group. “I thought that I was going to have a chance to just push through it and play today. It’s kind of weird for me to be sitting out with an ankle sprain. I’ve never thought of that as a real injury, but it’s hard for me to even walk.”
However, Ezeli could be seen cycling on a stationary bike as the rest of the team shot around.
“I’m always gonna find a way to work,” Ezeli said. “That’s me, I’m always going to find a way to do something, get better somehow.”
Kerr said that he would start either Marreese Speights or David Lee, although Speights had been wearing a blue-colored jersey which usually is an indication of a starter, when reporters first walked in.
“We’ll see how we’re gonna go,” Kerr said, “but obviously we’re gonna mix and match a little bit, without Festus and ‘Bogues’ (injured starting center Andrew Bogut) and you’ll probably see a few different lineups out there.”
“We’re always looking at every matchup,” Kerr added. “When injuries hit and you’re playing with different groups, you try to figure out what might work. We’ve got an idea of some things we might want to do tonight to get some open shots, but you don’t change a ton of things. You kind of stick with what you do, maybe add a play or two here or there, but just try to get the guys in spots where you feel they can best exploit the defense. Obviously, the Clippers do that as well as anybody with Doc (Rivers) and their group, so I would expect a lot of scoring tonight.”
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