LOS ANGELES – Take off 14 games and more than a month of basketball, and certain aspects of the game that typically come second-nature may not look as crisp as normal.
Head coach Doc Rivers said before Friday’s game and the return of Chris Paul, who came back a week earlier than initially anticipated from a torn left thumb ligament, ball-handling is typically the hardest trait to return when a player misses a significant amount of time.
Even for a player with the handles of Paul, as the ball bounced off his foot and out of bounds early against the Spurs, it appeared that thought rang true, and Paul agreed.