Clippers All-Star forward Blake Griffin injured his right hand throwing a punch during an altercation with a member of the team’s traveling party over the weekend and will be sidelined a few more weeks.
The Bulls play the Clippers in Los Angeles on Sunday.
Clippers coach Doc Rivers would not divulge whether there would be any discipline involved as a result of the incident but said he would more fully address the situation before his team plays the Indiana Pacers on Tuesday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
The staff member involved in the altercation has not been fired, a team spokesman said.
The injury imperils Griffin’s ability to play in the All-Star game Feb. 14 in Toronto if he is selected to be among the reserves for the Western Conference roster. The reserves will be announced Thursday.
Griffin returned to Los Angeles on Sunday because he wasn’t going to play on the remainder of the Clippers’ five-game trip and is having his hand evaluated to determine the extent of the injury.
It is the second physical altercation involving Griffin in the last 16 months. A West Hollywood man accused Griffin of snatching his cellphone and grabbing him after the man took a picture of Clippers players at the Tao nightclub in Las Vegas last October.
The misdemeanor battery case later was dropped after prosecutors decided there was insufficient evidence.
Griffin already had been sidelined since the day after Christmas with a partially torn left quadriceps tendon and had hoped to return on the Clippers’ current five-game trip.
The Clippers have gone 11-3 in Griffin’s absence, though most of the victories have come against teams with losing records.
“With Blake out, we’ve had this mode of trying to win every game and that’s how we have to continue to play,” Rivers said.
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