San Antonio Spurs: Another one bites the dust

The San Antonio Spurs lost LaMarcus Aldridge to an ankle injury vs. the New Orleans Pelicans.

Stop if this has been heard in the 2017-18 season: a San Antonio Spurs player suffered an injury. Yes, once again, someone fell to this dreaded bug that overwhelmed the roster for most of this campaign. LaMarcus Aldridge was the player Wednesday, who dealt with a sore knee before the All-Star break.

In the second quarter vs. the New Orleans Pelicans, Aldridge landed awkwardly after an attempt to defend a Rajon Rondo layup. He went to the ground, stayed in the game for a few more minutes, and departed before the second quarter ended.

The Spurs eventually announced that Aldridge would not return.

INJURY UPDATE: LaMarcus Aldridge (sprained right ankle) will not return to tonight's game.

— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) March 1, 2018

Despite the absence of the team’s leading scorer, the game remained close, until the fourth quarter, when the Pelicans pushed forward and secured a late-game 3-pointer to take the lead. They won 121-116.

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Without Aldridge, Pau Gasol (bone bruise, left knee) and Kawhi Leonard (return from injury management), the Spurs remarkably kept this close. That was with lineups of Dejounte Murray, Patty Mills, Kyle Anderson, Davis Bertans and Joffrey Lauvergne out there. The play of this group even inspired post-game praise from head coach Gregg Popovich.

So, how long will San Antonio be without Aldridge? Right now, that’s unknown and may remain the case until Friday. The Spurs do not play until Saturday and usually announce the official injury report 24 hours before a game, pending it’s not a back-to-back. With a day off between this matchup and Monday, it would not be a surprise to see the Silver and Black take a cautious approach, as long as the injury is worse than it looked.

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One day, the injury report will fizzle into a blank tweet on the Spurs Twitter account. Unfortunately for the team, this does not seem imminent.