Clippers coach Tyronn Lue enters NBA’s health and safety protocols
First the Clippers began losing their players to the NBA’s health and safety protocols.
Now their coach is sidelined.
Tyronn Lue has entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols, the team announced hours before Friday’s tipoff in Toronto. Assistant Brian Shaw, a former head coach with Denver from 2013-15, will serve as acting coach.
Even as the NBA shortened how long its players and coaches must stay in quarantine, so long as they are no longer deemed infectious, the team’s tightly packed upcoming schedule could see the team play several games without Lue at a time when their decimated roster needs the lineup juggling and on-the-fly adjustments for which he is known.
The Clippers (18-17) play in Brooklyn on Saturday and Minnesota on Monday in Los Angeles. They then get two days off before a Jan. 6 game in Phoenix.
The coaching staff is down two of its members, as associate head coach Dan Craig, the team’s defensive architect, has been away from the bench for nearly three weeks while recovering from knee surgery.
Clippers center Ivica Zubac, who has not missed a game since joining the team in February 2019, has entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols.
Lue’s subtraction came with an addition Friday, as the Clippers officially signed 6-foot-9 forward Wenyen Gabriel to a 10-day contract using the NBA’s COVID-related hardship exception. Gabriel had spent the last 10 days with Brooklyn.
The Clippers’ plan is to have Gabriel available for the game against the Raptors, before facing his former team, the Nets.
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