Injuries to Watch: September 9

UPDATE 5:05 pm ET: Serge Ibaka (ankle) is good to go and does not have any restrictions after his ankle sprain on Monday. He was in a boot yesterday, but getting the green light before warmups are done should be a sign he’s ready for minutes in the 20s. He’s still a solid option and might be leaned on if Marc Gasol struggles.

We might finally have the Eastern Conference Finals set as the Celtics look to close out the Raptors in Game 6 today. Make sure you check out Matchups to go over how the Celtics are just making the Raptors struggle so much offensively. As for the injuries, it’s really just about Serge Ibaka (ankle).

On Tuesday, he was wearing a walking boot and talked about how he was feeling. “I will see how I wake up tomorrow, because it’s different,” Ibaka said. “When it happened last night, I felt like I could still play. Then today, this morning, it changed a little bit. So let’s see tomorrow when I wake up.”

You’d think he would at least try to give it a go, and he’s probably not going to start. That means we might be in the dark on his availability for this game. Coach Nick Nurse also talked about how he might have to replace Serge. “But just like always, we go to the next guy,” said Nurse. “Don’t know who that is yet. We’ve obviously played Chris Boucher some in this series. Could be Rondae, could be somebody else, but we’ll just wait and see on that.”

Nurse also talked a bit about Boucher in this series. “I think he certainly plays that role well, those roles are energy-type roles, kind of play spot minutes or whatever the word I’m looking for is, “said Nurse. “Come in and just be energetic. I thought he did good [in Game 5], he had a good contest on Tatum, actually got a piece and blocked one of Kemba’s shots which we recovered. I thought he was awful close to a tip-in or two as the game progressed so, you know that’s one thing you’ve got to love about Chris. He’s going to come out there and give you that energy and try as hard as he possibly can. So that’s good to see, I give him a lot of credit for hanging in there and doing that when he gets his small moments to do it.”

Boucher should be the guy, but again it might be RHJ and that RHJ-Siakam combo Nurse has used throughout the season. Expect Serge to be a game-time call.

Toronto Raptors vs. Boston Celtics, 6:30 pm ET

Serge Ibaka (ankle) is questionable while Patrick McCaw and Oshae Brissett remain out.

Gordon Hayward, Javonte Green and Vincent Poirier are all still out.

LA Clippers vs. Denver Nuggets, 9:00 pm ET

The Clippers have no injuries to report.

Will Barton and Vlatko Cancar are still out.