Kings guard Garrett Temple will miss two to three weeks with a partially torn hamstring, tweets Marc J. Spears of ESPN.com. Temple suffered the injury in Tuesday’s loss at Houston.
The 30-year-old swingman has been a reliable bench player for Sacramento for most of the season and moved into the starting lineup after Rudy Gay‘s Achilles tear last month. Temple is averaging 7.7 points and 2.7 rebounds in 49 games.
“I got a strip on James [Harden] and pushed off to go grab it and felt it right away,” Temple told Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee. “I knew it wasn’t a cramp. I knew what it was right away.”
Temple has experience with hamstring tears, and says this one isn’t as severe as one he suffered a couple of seasons ago when he played for the Wizards. That kept him out of action for about a month, as he aggravated it in his first practice when trying to return.
The Kings are already shorthanded at the wing position with injuries to Gay and Omri Casspi, so until Temple recovers, they will have to rely on rookie Malachi Richardson along with Ben McLemore, who played Tuesday for the first time in six games.
“Guys are going to step up,” Temple said. “I have a lot of faith in Malachi, Ben, and when Omri gets back, we can still bounce back and hopefully I’ll be back sooner than later.”