The Mavericks will have to play at least four more games without backup point guard Jalen Brunson.
The second-year Villanova product suffered a sprained right shoulder after the joint dislocated 10 seconds into Saturday’s game at Atlanta. The shoulder was quickly popped back into place, but coach Rick Carlisle said at least a week’s worth of rehab will be needed.
He sat out Monday’s game and the Mavericks begin a four-game, six-day trip Wednesday at San Antonio.
“Brunson will not play on this trip,” Carlisle said. “We perhaps will have an update after the trip. But he will travel. And he’ll begin rehabbing and we’ll see where we are then.”
The Mavericks are walking on eggshells about their point guards with Luka Doncic recovering from a sprained right ankle that kept him out of seven games before the All-Star break. He returned to play Friday in Orlando, but sat the second night of a back-to-back in Atlanta.
Courtney Lee saw action early in Monday’s game against Minnesota and Carlisle said wily veteran J.J. Barea is always a viable option. He also played before the first quarter was done Monday.
“It’s next guy up,” Carlisle said. “We got J.J. who is always ready. He’ll be in the middle of it. He’s a great luxury to have there.”
Doncic, by the way, appeared to turn his ankle again on a drive in the first quarter against the Wolves when he came down on the foot of James Johnson. He came away from that incident limping, but stayed in the game.
Owner Mark Cuban said in Atlanta that Doncic is going to have to deal with periodic soreness in his ankle, which might require some load management along the way.
The Mavericks also were without Willie Cauley-Stein (personal reasons) against the Wolves.
“This is a busy week,” Carlisle said. “Four games on the road and none of them are easy. We’re always trying to do the best we can with our health. But sometimes, things happen and we got to have everybody ready to step forward.”
Remembering Kobe: While a lot of NBA players made it to Los Angeles for Monday’s celebration of life for Kobe and Gianna Bryant, the Mavericks couldn’t make it because of their game Monday night.
But most of them saw some or all of the ceremony.
“It was great,” said Barea. “I can’t believe what a great job Vanessa (Bryant, Kobe’s widow) did. That’s really tough. I thought everybody was unbelievable.”
Said Carlisle: “I didn’t see nearly as much as I wanted to see. Game days are busy. But it looked like an amazing tribute. And I’ll try to catch parts of it.”
Culver coming along: Last year at this time, Jarrett Culver was leading Texas Tech late into the season on a terrific run that eventually ended in the NCAA championship game loss to Virginia.
Born in Dallas and raised in Lubbock, Culver was the sixth overall pick in the draft by Phoenix, but was traded to Minnesota for Dario Saric and Cameron Johnson.
As a rookie, Culver has averaged 9 points and 3.4 rebounds per game.
“For rookies you’re always going to have ebbs and flows,” Wolves coach Ryan Saunders said. “I love his ability to just stay even keeled. No matter if he has a great stretch of games or if he has a game where he might have wished he played better, he comes back with the same mindset.
“And we’ve put him in different roles too whether he’d be handling the ball, whether he’s starting, playing off the ball, whether we have him guarding the best offensive players, whether we have him guarding the best player off the bench, for a younger guy to be able to do that and accept those roles and those challenges, he’s been great for us and he’s only going to get better.”
Briefly: Carlisle on the protest that the Mavericks have filed challenging the application of the rules in the final seconds of the Atlanta game: “My understanding is this is handled through the commissioner’s office. We’ll hear something when we hear something. But for me and everybody else, we have to move on.” . . . Barea on Monday moved past Michael Finley into fifth place on the Mavericks’ all-time games-played list with 626 . . . Seth Curry continues to have the highest 3-point field-goal percentage of all active players who qualify for the statistic. His .436 percentage coming into Monday’s game was .001 ahead of his brother, Steph.
Twitter: @ESefko
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