Phoenix Suns star Kevin Durant will miss at least a week with a sprained left ankle, the team announced Wednesday. He suffered the injury in the second quarter of the Suns’ 104-93 win against the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday.
Durant missed seven games in November because of a strained left calf. Phoenix went 1-6 in that stretch, but it was also without Bradley Beal for five of those games. The Suns will now be without Durant again when they visit the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday, the Miami Heat on Saturday and the Orlando Magic on Sunday. After that, their next scheduled game is next Friday against the Utah Jazz.
“Yeah, obviously tough,” Suns star Devin Booker told reporters after the win. “It’s impossible to replace what he brings to our team. Even just his presence around the team. Not even having him on the bench in the second half was tough. But we still fought.”
At that time, Phoenix didn’t know the extent of Durant’s injury. Durant, Booker and Beal have shared the court in 10 games for a total of 175 minutes this season.
“You know it’s part of our league,” Suns coach Mike Budenholzer told reporters. “We’re not any different. I’m sure there’s not a team in the league that’s not dealing with some people in and out of the lineups, and hopefully we teach and start to learn a way of playing that’s good for everybody regardless of who’s healthy and who’s not, and guys can find ways to contribute. Other people have opportunities to get more minutes. So we’ll just see how Kevin is, and you just gotta keep playing. You gotta keep competing, keep getting stops, get out, run, play with each other, try and play the way we want to play.”
In 13 games, including his 16-minute appearance against San Antonio, Durant has played at an All-NBA level and Phoenix has gone 11-2. The future Hall of Famer is averaging 25.8 points on 65.2% true shooting, 6.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.5 blocks in 35.7 minutes per game.
Suns center Jusuf Nurkic has missed their last two games with a right thigh contusion. On Monday, Budenholzer told reporters that Nurkic would be reevaluated in a week.
Overall, Phoenix is 12-8 on the season. Despite going 3-1 in the NBA Cup group play, it was eliminated from the tournament on Tuesday.
