Clippers update: Blake Griffin out after ankle injury

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As it turned out, it wasn’t the knee or the back and the ribs taking Blake Griffin out of the lineup.

Griffin won’t be playing on Sunday for the Clippers (1-5 in preseason) against the Denver Nuggets because he hurt his ankle early against the Utah Jazz on Saturday at Staples Center.

‘To be honest with you, I was kind of thinking about giving him the night off anyway,’ said Clippers Coach Vinny Del Negro, who said he thought it was Griffin’s left ankle. ‘It made my decision much easier. He kind of turned his ankle a little bit yesterday in the game. He’s fine.

‘He did it at the beginning of the game and he played the whole game. He’s actually a lot better right now. If it was regular season, he’d play. Just want to be smart and use the time to fix it.

‘I expect him to play Tuesday, unless something comes up in the next 48 hours I don’t know about. I don’t see where there would be a problem. Hopefully we can get everyone healthy, and hopefully DeAndre (Jordan) will be back and we can work him out and we’ll see how his hamstring is feeling.

‘I’m hoping we can finally get to starting five and a rotation and actually play it like a game, instead of all this mix and match stuff.’

-- Lisa Dillman