Wizards’ Kristaps Porzingis is week-to-week with an ankle sprain
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The Washington Wizards absorbed another injury to one of their key players when the team announced Monday that Kristaps Porzingis is listed as week-to-week with a left ankle sprain.
Porzingis, the team’s second-leading scorer, sustained the injury in the third quarter of a win over the Orlando Magic on Saturday. Coach Wes Unseld Jr. did not want to put a number on the games he expects Porzingis to miss, but the big man will travel with the Wizards as they embark on a five-game road trip that begins Tuesday against the Mavericks, Porzingis’s former team.
Washington (20-26) plays a back-to-back against Dallas and Houston before facing New Orleans on Saturday.
“Moving better than I thought,” Unseld said when asked how Porzingis is doing. “Right now, just an ankle sprain, we’ll say week-to-week.”
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For a player who arrived in Washington with a lengthy injury history, Porzingis has been a sturdy presence this season. He has missed just five games, never more than two in a row, and is averaging 22.1 points and 8.8 rebounds per game.
Other Wizards players haven’t been as fortunate.
Washington has been decimated by injuries. Porzingis went out one game after Bradley Beal returned from his third extended absence of the season; he missed eight games in a nine-game stretch because of hamstring soreness that became a strain after he played 13 minutes on Jan. 3 in Milwaukee.
Beal missed six games in December with a right hamstring strain and five games in November because of a nasty bout of coronavirus.
Backup point guard Delon Wright missed 29 games over a nearly two-month span due to a hamstring strain as well, and forward Rui Hachimura — who was traded Monday to the Los Angeles Lakers in return for Kendrick Nunn and three second-round picks — missed 16 games with an ankle sprain and bone bruise.
“You’ve got to keep going, you forge through it. It’s unfortunate, you feel like every time you turn around it’s something,” Unseld said. “But you can’t control that. This group has shown enough resilience, enough fight — even when you’re down a couple — to pick up the slack somewhere, and guys step up. It’s a good sign for our guys that we’re able to do that, but it’s certainly not ideal.”
Unseld had hoped to establish some consistency with his group over a soft stretch of the schedule. After Tuesday’s game in Dallas, the Wizards face three of the four teams with the worst records in the NBA in Houston, San Antonio and Detroit. New Orleans has won just three of its last 10 games after losing star Zion Williamson to a right hamstring injury.
Washington’s core trio of Beal, Porzingis and Kyle Kuzma have played together for just 23 of 46 games this season.
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The good news is that the Wizards have shown they can withstand the loss of a central player. Washington is 8-12 without Beal this year and 3-2 in the five games Porzingis has missed. Making up for Porzingis’s unique presence will be difficult, but Unseld has veteran center Taj Gibson behind usual starter Daniel Gafford.
When Porzingis has missed games, Unseld tends to start either Gibson or Gafford at center, Kuzma at power forward and bring Deni Avdija up from the bench to play small forward.
The Wizards are going to lean on Kuzma and Beal to pick up the scoring slack. In his first game back from injury, Beal scored 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting to add to four assists and four rebounds against the New York Knicks. Against Orlando on Saturday, he had 17 points, made 7 of 14 shots from the field and added eight assists and four rebounds.
“It’s going to be by committee. It’s one thing, [Porzingis] adds a different dimension as a stretch big whether he’s at the four or the five, he opens up the floor for a lot of guys behind him. Obviously he can pick and pop, make threes,” Unseld said. “And defensively, the combination of him and Gaff together has been pretty good for us. We’ve got enough guys to play at a high level, but whenever you’re going to be without a marquee piece, it does affect how you play.”