Damp is out and Diop is in

Erick Dampier gave his tender right ankle a try before tonight’s game, but won’t be able to go.

“We’re down Damp tonight,” Avery Johnson said. “I just finished watching him warm up and he cannot play in this game. He just cannot go tonight. I don’t want to put him in further danger.”

Gana Diop, the starting center the first 14 games of the season, moves into Dampier’s place.

“We’ll give Diop a chance,” Johnson said. “Diop needs to play some minutes. He needs to get going. We hadn’t been playing that much. I had a little talk with him this morning before practice and he needs to get jumpstarted a little bit without Damp being in there tonight. He’s started before, so he’ll have to play and Juwan Howard is going to have to play and give us some production.”