An MRI performed on Dallas Mavericks center/forward Maxi Kleber revealed that he has a right shoulder AC joint separation and thus will miss the Western Conference semifinal series against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Mavs announced Sunday that Kleber will be re-evaluated in three weeks.
Kleber suffered the injury Friday with 11:15 remaining in the second quarter of the Mavs’ 114-101 close-out Game 6 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers. Kleber was dribbling the basketball and proceeded to dart down the court and did a near somersault when he collided with Clippers forward Amir Coffey.
Coffey was whistole for a foul on the play, and Kleber left the game for good after attempting two free throws.
Coach Jason Kidd sympathized with the injury to Kleber, but turned his focus to guard Tim Hardaway Jr., who missed the final four games of the series against the Clippers with a right ankle sprain but was back at practice on Sunday. Hardaway will be back on the court when Game 1 of the Mavs-OKC conference semifinal series starts Tuesday at 8:30 pm in Oklahoma.
“It’s next man up,” Kidd said after Sunday’s practice. “We would love to be healthy, but Maxi’s out, so there’s nothing we can do except it’s on to the next guy.”
Asked who is that next guy, Kidd said: “Well, we’ll get Timmie back, so we’ll get healthy there. So that’s how we look at it – that we lost Maxi, but we’ll get Timmie back.”
Kleber is a key defensive player for the Mavs, and his shooting has improved recently. In the Mavs’ huge 123-93 win in Los Angeles in Game 5 against the Clippers this past Wednesday, Kleber converted 5-of-7 baskets from three-point range and finished with 15 points.
Rookie center Dereck Lively II said the Mavs will rally around Kleber and hopes he can return to the court sooner than expected.
“Just seeing one of our family members go down that bad, we all get hit,” Lively said. “Just being able to know we’ve got to be able to pick him up.
“There’s a lot of people who’s looking at us, a lot of people who’s questioning what we’re going to do. But Maxi knows that we’ve got his back, and we know that he’s going to do whatever he can to get back. But we got to take it game-by-game.”
Kidd said the Mavs will turn to Markieff Morris, Dwight Powell and Derrick Jones Jr. as a fill-in for Kleber.
“Oklahoma is not a big team,” Kidd said. “We’ve got quite a few bigs that we can go to. We’re not short on bigs.”
X: @DwainPrice
