Seraphin and George will miss at least a week of games. [Frank McGrath/PS&E]
Paul George and Kevin Seraphin will miss the Pacers’ next two games — Sunday vs. the Clippers, Wednesday at Trail Blazers — the team announced during the first quarter of Friday night’s home game against Brooklyn.
George, who is dealing with a sore left ankle, was listed as probable to begin the day — and then he was downgraded to a game-time decision by coach Nate McMillan 95 minutes before the game tipped off.
“The decision was if he couldn’t go tonight, we were going to hold him for a few days,” McMillan said after the Pacers’ dominating 118-97 win over Brooklyn. “I didn’t know the number of days, but not to put him day-to-day so that everything can heal up with him. Next week is a time when we have a few days of rest. I think we have three games in the next ten days, and then after that we are back to [playing] every other day.
“So, the plan was to give him some time where we would not have a lot of games in a row. And try to allow him to heal up, as opposed to play him a game, get sore, and he wasn’t practicing the last couple of days due to injury.”
The Pacers’ star was obviously not himself in Wednesday’s home loss to Atlanta. He contributed 18 points and six rebounds in 38 minutes, but he was 6-of-22 from the floor, 2-of-11 from outside, and not nearly as explosive as usual.
In all, George will miss at least six of seven games through next Wednesday, when the Pacers play at Portland. The ankle injury, which occurred on Nov. 11 at Philadelphia, caused him to be sidelined for a game the next night against Boston.
An X-ray and MRI revealed nothing noteworthy, per McMillan, who confirmed that George has not practiced with the team in more than a month since first injuring it.
“The ankle gets sore whenever he runs on it. And the next day, we’ve tried to allow him to rest,” McMillan said.
Seraphin, bothered by a sore left knee, has missed two straight games, including Friday against the Nets. He has run on the team’s underwater treadmill.
The next game that George and Seraphin may be healthy for will be on Sunday, Dec. 4 in Los Angeles. That means they will have at least 10 days between games to heal up.
C.J. Miles missed his fourth consecutive game on Friday as he recovered from a sore left knee. Coach McMillan said earlier this week that Miles would be reevaluated next week.
On Sunday, the Pacers close out a stretch of playing eight of nine games at home, including four straight. They will then head out west for their first road trip, consisting of five games. They have stops in Portland, Los Angeles, Oakland, Phoenix, and Dallas.
Injuries, causing lineups to fluctuate, continue to delay the team’s development so early into the season.
[…] In terms of quantity of games, the Pacers are at an ideal point in the schedule to rest George, as he won’t get a more lenient workload for the rest of the season. On the flip side, it’s a far more difficult stretch in terms of quality of opponents, as Indiana will take on the two best teams in the Western Conference right now without its best player (and without CJ Miles, George’s backup, whose knee injury will also be re-evaluated later this week, per McMillan’s comments.) […]