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Oklahoma City will be without the services of one of their best scorers on Friday night.
Although it is the second game of a back-to-back, the timing isn’t exactly great considering OKC is going up against the best team in the NBA in the Milwaukee Bucks, who have won four in a row and nine of their last 10 games.
Citing the Thunder game notes, Steve McGehee of KWTV Sports tweeted out that Danilo Gallinari will not go against Friday due to left ankle soreness. He is the second-leading scorer on the team this season, averaging 19.3 points per game while shooting 44.1% from the field.
According to Thunder game notes just released Gallinari is out tonight (left ankle; soreness) nice break for Gallo since they don’t play again until March 3.
— Steve McGehee (@SteveMcGehee) February 28, 2020
The move to sit Gallo comes less than 24 hours after he led Oklahoma City to a 112-108 come from behind win over the Sacramento Kings.
In Thursday night’s win, Gallinari scored 24 points, helping the Thunder erase a 19-point third-quarter deficit to earn their fifth straight victory. Gallinari shot 8-of-17 from the field and hit 50% of his attempts from beyond the 3-point line.
In Oklahoma City’s only other game against the Bucks this season, Gallinari scored just 14 points in 30 minutes but did lead the team with seven rebounds in a 121-119 loss on Nov. 10.
The Thunder caught fire just a few weeks later.
As noted by ESPN’s Royce Young, since Thanksgiving, the Bucks own the league’s best record at 35-5, right behind them is OKC at 31-11.
Records since Thanksgiving:
1. Bucks 35-5
2. Thunder 31-11
3. Lakers 29-10
4. Raptors 29-12
5. Celtics 28-13— Royce Young (@royceyoung) February 28, 2020
Oklahoma City will also be without Darius Bazley on Friday night as he is continuing to work back from a bone bruise in his right knee suffered on Feb. 9. Although Billy Donovan said on Thursday that the rookie is making “significant progress”, the Thunder will stick to the originally scheduled timeline of four-to-six weeks before re-evaluation.