DETROIT — The Cleveland Cavaliers had arguably their most impressive win of the season on Tuesday against the New York Knicks. They followed this up by having two of their best players miss the next pair of games, as James Harden (thumb) and Donovan Mitchell (groin) are unavailable for Friday’s matchup against the conference-leading Detroit Pistons.
The team hasn’t released an update on Mitchell’s groin injury, however, head coach Kenny Atkinson doesn’t expect this to be a long-term issue.
“I hate speculating, I just don’t like to do that,” Atkinson said. “We don’t love soft tissue injuries. … The feedback I’m getting is that it’s not a long-term thing, so that’s good. It’s not like, man, it’s going to be four weeks, you know, a month or a month and a half. It’s none of that.”
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Even though it’s not a long-term injury, Atkinson doesn’t quite know when Mitchell is going to be returning to the court. They don’t want to rush him or any of their other injured players back, even though they would like a better opportunity to evaluate the rotations after the drastic changes they’ve made to the roster at the deadline.
“We’re not going to rush anybody,” Atkinson said. “That’s against what I believe in, what Steve [Spiro, Cavs head athletic trainer] believes in. What our organization believes. But you know, you do feel a little sense of urgency.”
Cleveland’s moves at the deadline were done to give this team a better chance to win a title this year and next. They will need to be healthy in the playoffs to do so, but Mitchell and Harden would ideally like to have more than a handful of games played together before heading into the postseason.
The Cavs do have a rare four-day break coming up next week. The team will be off from Wednesday to Saturday, which could give everyone time to get rested up and recover for the stretch run.
Injuries are a part of the game, but they aren’t exactly coming at a convenient time for a team that was starting to play its best basketball of the season. Fortunately for the Cavs, it doesn’t seem like Mitchell will be out for too long.
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