Utah Jazz guard Ricky Rubio (3) waits for the start of a play as the Utah Jazz and the Philadelphia 76ers play an NBA basketball game at Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Dec. 27, 2018. (Qiling Wang, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah Jazz were already down Dante Exum and Thabo Sefolosha heading into Monday’s game against the Bucks, but five minutes into the game the injury bug found Ricky Rubio who hurt his hamstring.
The team fell to the Milwaukee Bucks 114-102 as the game got away in the fourth quarter. However, the roster was only down to one point guard in Raul Neto.
Now the team also reported that Tony Bradley injured his knee in an SLC Stars game and will be re-evaluated in one month. Exum sprained his ankle in Saturday’s come-from-behind victory over the Detroit Pistons. Sefolosha went down in that game as well with a mild strained hamstring. Both Rubio and Sefolosha received an MRI and will be re-evaluated in one week.
The team did not give an update on Exum, but the Athletic reported he is expected to miss two weeks.
This means Neto will most likely get the start in Wednesday’s game against the Orlando Magic. The Jazz may plug in Donovan Mitchell to play some point guard minutes as well.
“We believe in Raul Neto, and Donovan has played some point guard before and so has Joe (Ingles),” Snyder said after Monday night’s game. “We’ll figure it out. Rather than focus on that as much, I think our team has to pull together even more, which we consistently do.”
Mitchell believes his team is capable of stepping up as well.
“We can’t sulk and be like, ‘Oh, man.’ Obviously, it’s tough and it’s similar to Houston when we lost Ricky and Dante,” Mitchell said. “But we can’t sit back and say it gives us an excuse.
“We can’t have that,” he added. “We have to go out there and compete until those guys get healthy.”
Jazz will begin a four-game homestand Wednesday night against the Magic with tip-off set for 7 P.M