Injury Bug Bites Again: Clippers’ Blake Griffin, Chris Paul are NBA’s Latest Victims

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Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin hyper-extended his left knee on a layup around the hoop late in the third quarter of Wednesday’s playoff loss against the Memphis Grizzlies.

Adding insult to injury, star guard Chris Paul injured his right hip flexor late in the loss, which sends the series back to L.A. for a Game 6 on Friday.

Griffin did shoot the free throws after his injury, but didn’t return until 9 minutes to go in the game.

Griffin was not on the floor when the game ended, a 92-80 win for Memphis, but Paul was hobbling about after hurting his right leg with under 2 minutes left.

Both players fought through the injuries Wednesday, but how they hold up over the remainder of the playoffs remains to be seen.

Griffin injured that same knee his rookie year, missing the entire 2009-10 season after breaking his left kneecap in the Clippers’ final preseason game that year.

Two years later, the playoffs have been marred by knee injuries with Baron Davis (dislocated knee cap), Iman Shumpert (ACL), and Derrick Rose (ACL) also going down to season-ending knee injuries in the first round. The Chicago Bulls have also been without Joakim Noah the past two games because of a sprained ankle.

On the CBS Sports Network earlier this week, NBA commissioner David Stern admitted he’s concerned about the injuries but isn’t sure the lockout-shortened season and tightened schedule (with a lack of practices and recovery time) is to blame.

“The one thing I do know is that we’ve had more lost games because of injuries, because the compressed schedule takes away a day of rest for a minor injury,” he said. ” … We’re going to look at the precise numbers at the end of the season and we’ll try to have a view of it because it’s spread out differently as well. Some teams don’t practice. Some teams do. I don’t know whether it relates.

“Some teams actually worked out with the players alone all summer and some didn’t. We’re going to try to see whether we can learn something from this compressed season in the way that teams approach it.”