Tyson Chandler, Austin Rivers out against Cavaliers with illness

The Houston Rockets will be traveling light to Cleveland on Wednesday, as they will be without backups Austin Rivers and Tyson Chandler.

It was revealed on Tuesday morning that neither Rivers or Chandler will be on the plane to Ohio to face the Cavaliers.

Their status for the game in Orlando on Friday is still undetermined.

Chandler, who has not seen the floor since Dec. 3 against the Spurs, was reported to be out the previous two games against the Suns and Kings with an illness. Rivers, on the hand, was ruled out late before Monday’s games against the Kings, also with an illness.

The Rockets may have been hit with a literal bug (but also not literally a bug) as the the number of games missed due to illness piles up. Danuel House Jr. missed back-to-back games (illness) against the Hawks and Spurs a little over a week ago before returning to come off the bench against the Raptors. Clint Capela also missed back-to-back games the same week as House did, including the Hawks game.

As of now, the Rockets have not confirmed if the illnesses are related. There are also no signs of this being a tactic of load management, and that should be concerning. Not only are four of their players all sick within a week of each other, but they were confident enough that neither Chandler or Rivers would be ready 48 hours from the last injury report that they didn’t fly with the team. Not to mention, they could be out all the way until Friday’s game. Without any more details, it’s hard to believe there’s nothing contagious going around the team.

If the illnesses do persist, hopefully the team will shed light on what is going on.