Cavaliers star Donovan Mitchell will miss Friday’s contest against Sacramento with lower right leg soreness, reports Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com. The Kings will also be without their leading scorer, point guard De’Aaron Fox, tweets Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee.
As Fedor writes, Mitchell has been dealing with the soreness for a while. He initially sprained his ankle against the Warriors on November 11, which caused him to miss a game, and then aggravated the injury on November 28 against Toronto, when he scored a season-low eight points.
Mitchell, who is averaging a career-high 29.0 PPG with a career-best .496/.424/.890 shooting slash line, was limited during the Cavs’ shootaround on Friday and the team decided to be cautious with him on the first night of a back-to-back, Fedor notes. Caris LeVert will start in Mitchell’s place.
Fox, who is averaging 22.8 PPG with a .507/.366/.826 shooting line, recently disclosed that he’s been dealing with right foot soreness for over a month, and the pain obviously was bad enough to be ruled out tonight. Head coach Mike Brown said the Kings plan to take his injury “day-by-day” and will “see how he feels,” (Twitter link via Anderson).
Second-year guard Davion Mitchell will start in Fox’s place, Anderson adds in another tweet. Kings guard Terence Davis, who was previously listed as questionable, was also ruled out with lower back soreness.
Kings by 11 book it