Clippers forward Montrezl Harrell has cleared his seven-day quarantine, ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk tweets. He will see limited action on Monday night against Dallas in the opener of their Western Conference first-round series, Tim MacMahon of ESPN tweets.
Harrell hasn’t played or scrimmaged since the team left Los Angeles and settled in at the Orlando campus. Harrell departed the campus in mid-July due to his grandmother’s death and the team allowed him as much time as he needed to grieve. He finally returned to Orlando last Monday and was placed under seven-day quarantine.
During his absence, Harrell was named one of the three finalists for the Sixth Man of the Year award along with teammate Lou Williams and Oklahoma City’s Dennis Schroder.
Clippers coach Doc Rivers told the media during his pregame remote press conference on Monday that Harrell will be eased back into action.
“It’ll be very little, would be my guess,” Rivers said of how much Harrell would play in the opener. “It’s amazing, we’re using a playoff game to get a guy back in rhythm.”
Once in rhythm, Harrell is one of the key pieces to a potential championship. He averaged a career-best 18.6 PPG, 7.1 RPG and 1.1 BPG in 27.8 MPG over 63 regular-season games this season.
Harrell, who is making $6MM this season, will be one of the top unrestricted free agents on the offseason market.
Of course. Playoffs mean no more positive tests.
Umm… what?
If Clippers going to Finals. Even winning Finals. It will be with Harrell. Absolutely got to have him, playing well. Mavs played Clippers well 1st gm. They better wake up. Not a KP guy. But he was playing well. Before getting thrown out. Ref was too quick on that. It’s playoffs man. Same time he knew he had a tech. So should just got between. Not in Morris face.