Kent Bazemore took a step toward rejoining the Hawks lineup when his injury status was upgraded to questionable before Friday’s game at the Grizzlies, according the team’s injury report released Thursday.
Tiago Splitter has been ruled out and will miss his third straight game with right hip soreness.
Bazemore started 12 games at small forward until he suffered a right ankle sprain in the final minutes of the Hawks game against the Jazz on Nov. 15. He has missed the past five games with the injury.
The Hawks (10-7) conclude a stretch of four games in five days with games at the Grizzlies and at the Spurs Saturday.
Bazemore, who is averaging 12.0 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.6 assists, traveled with the team and has been doing pregame workouts. It appears he shown progress after his workout before Wednesday’s game against the Timberwolves.
The Hawks have used several lineups in Bazemore’s absence, including starting Thabo Sefolosha, Justin Holiday and Tiago Splitter.
Sefolosha been brought along slowly after his season ended last year in April with surgery for a broken right fibula and ligament damage in his ankle. He has appeared in 14 games and is averaging 7.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, 1.6 steals and 1.3 assists. He has started the past two games at small forward in place of Bazemore. The Hawks are 50-16 in games Sefolosha appears over the past two seasons. He is a plus-53 in the 10 games he has started for the Hawks, including a plus-17 game against the Celtics Tuesday and a minus-10 game against the Timberwolves Wednesday.
It remains to be seen if Bazemore returns to the starting lineup when he is able to play or 100 percent recovered. Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer was non-committal when asked if Sefolosha would find his way into the starting lineup upon the return of Bazemore.
“I don’t know,” Budenholzer said Wednesday. “We’ll take it as we go. We’ll see how Baze feels when he is ready to play and where we feel his minutes should be. We are going to wait and see how things go.”
The Hawks injury report continues to list Kyle Korver and Sefolosha as probable with ankle rehabilitation.
