Injuries to Watch: Christmas

After the madness of a 13 12-game game slate, we get five games in a row and one at a time. You’ve gotta love the Christmas slate. On the injury front, we really don’t have many headliners, and the big one is for the early game. Make sure you get your coffee in early because…

Big Face Coffee CEO Jimmy Butler (right ankle) is questionable after he tweaked his ankle on Wednesday. He did play through it, but Butler didn’t exactly look like himself. He also had two different stints (January, August) with a right ankle injury keeping him out, so all these ankle sprains do cause concern.

After some talk of Jimmy at the four, he only played 0.8 minutes without another SF/PF next to him in the opener. Moe Harkless played almost exclusively with Butler with 22.4 of his 22.7 minutes next to him, so Butler not playing could cause Spo to shift his role, too. The matchup certainly matters here, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see Spo go with a big lineup to combat Zion. He could actually dust off Meyers Leonard because he seems to like Kelly Olynyk in his second unit — same with Iggy. The other option could be KZ Okpala, who was extremely impressive in the preseason. Spo said he wanted to see him play more in the preseason and there was some buzz that the Heat start him for the opener. At worst, he’d be in the rotation. Harkless could also play the three in a big lineup. Spo also said he likes Goran Dragic off the bench and said it was “a luxury.”

One thing we would know is that Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo would be busy in the first unit. In 196 minutes last season without Dragic and Jimmy, Bam put up a per-36 line of 16/11/8 while Herro was at 21/7/4. They’d be big chalk sans Jimbo and I’d eat it.

New Orleans Pelicans vs. Miami Heat

Team Totals: Pelicans 110.3 , Heat 113.8

Injury Report: Jimmy Butler, (Q, ankle), Wenyen Gabriel (O, knee)

Jimmy above.