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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Washington Wizards are going to be a little short-handed on Monday night when they host the Boston Celtics.
If ever there was a game you'd want the Wizards to have forward-center Daniel Gafford on the court it would be against the Boston Celtics in the return of forward-center Kristaps Porzingis.
Unfortunately, after he suffered an ankle injury during Washington's win against the Memphis Grizzlies in the team's home opener Gafford will miss Monday's contest against the Celtics coach Wes Unseld Jr. revealed ahead of the contest.
Making his season debut for the Wizards, however, will be second-year guard Johnny Davis.
Asked how he plans to incorporate Davis into his first game of the year coach Unseld responded, "Slowly," and continued by saying, "Obviously he's missed a chunk of time. We'll be cautious...he's fully available and we'll get a glimpse of what he looks like but I don't want to push the threshold too far."
Guard Landry Shamet was anticipated to be available for his first game in Washington as well, but he too will have to sit out Monday's game.
Coming off their first win of the season the Wizards would love nothing more than to stack a second on top of it.
Going up against one of the best teams in the league doesn't help, and missing one of your starters only makes things even more challenging than they already are.
"It's challenging on a number of levels on both sides of the ball," coach Unseld said. "They're switching. They've got positional size down the line. [They have a] very aggressive (and) physical backcourt who can jam you up a little bit. The switching has given us issues in the past offensively, it's kind of stagnated us, so we want to stay away from that when we can."
Tonight is billed as the return of Porzingis, but beyond that, it's the first chance this year for Washington to go toe-to-toe with one of the giants in the NBA today.
Without Gafford, it's going to be harder for the Wizards to contain Porzingis and prevent Boston from wreaking havoc inside of Capital One Arena.
Keep up with all Washington Wizards news on the SI.com Washington Wizards team page
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