LOS ANGELES — Lakers starting center Deandre Ayton was not available for Tuesday night’s home game against the Clippers, but the team hopes to have him back by the end of the week.

Coach JJ Redick said during his pregame media availability that Ayton, who sat out Tuesday because of a right knee contusion, was experiencing swelling and had a bruise but that imaging on the knee came back “clean.”

Ayton suffered the injury when he got hit in the knee during the first half of Sunday’s road win against the Utah Jazz. He sat out the second half because of the injury.

“Don’t think it’s going to be a long-term thing,” Redick said. “Hopefully it’s a game-to-game thing, and he’s back at some point by the end of the week.”

Tuesday was Ayton’s second missed game of the season.

He’s averaging 15.5 points on 69.6% shooting and 8.4 rebounds in 29.2 minutes per game.

“He’s a good player, double-double,” Clippers coach Ty Lue said. “He’s really gotten better defensively. Used to be a guy that we tried to attack him [when he was] in Phoenix, but he’s gotten better at that.

“They’re a good team. He’s a big part of what they’re doing, but Jaxson Hayes has been playing great as well. And then they’re coming with Maxi Kleber or [Jarred] Vanderbilt. So they’ll be OK.”

With Ayton sidelined, Hayes started against the Clippers alongside Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, LeBron James and Rui Hachimura.

After being in the second-half rotation on Sunday and impressing during his minutes, Kleber was in the Lakers’ first-half rotation against the Clippers.

“He’s very valuable for the things he’s able to do on the court because he understands who he is and all of those things that he’s really good at are complementary to our best players,” Redick said. “The other thing that he brings every single day is that he’s the best teammate for all the guys. His spirit, whether he’s in the rotation, out of the rotation, in street clothes because he has an oblique injury, whatever it is, he’s the same guy every day. There’s a stability to him that’s really becoming increasingly hard to find in the NBA for players. There’s value in that.”

The Lakers officially signed Drew Timme from their South Bay G League affiliate to a two-way contract on Tuesday morning.

Timme, a three-time consensus All-American selection at Gonzaga who is the Bulldogs’ all-time leading scorer, played for the Brooklyn Nets to finish last season after going undrafted in 2023. He averaged 12.1 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists in nine games (28.2 minutes) with the Nets in 2024-25 before signing with South Bay.

“It’s great,” Time said. “This is why I came here, to be able to hopefully get this opportunity and it definitely came sooner than I expected.”

After joining the South Bay Lakers, Timme averaged 25.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 1.2 steals in six games in the G League.

“He is tremendously skilled offensively,” Redick said. “We haven’t really had a big here as a hub, as like a passing guy that you can kind of play out of the high post with. [Anthony Davis], to an extent, but a lot of the stuff we ran for him in those spots was to get him a shot and not to be a playmaker. The thing that’s kind of underrated with [Timme] is his defensive rebounding is really good, particularly for his size. He’s produced at every level and looking forward to coaching him.”

Timme was one of the South Bay players who had the opportunity to practice with James earlier in the month during his return-to-play process from sciatica.

“It was pretty crazy, man,” Timme recalled. “I mean, that’s the G.O.A.T. [greatest of all time]. To be able to share the court with him, especially being a G League team, that’s so outside of the normal of anything. It was crazy. But I think it just shows how connected the two programs are, and it’s super cool. He came down, and that’s our job, was to help him get back, to get back into game speed. So we were just glad to help. And it was really cool to be able to hoop with him.”

Timme added that he was able to learn from James during the practices.

“Especially with this new role that I’ve had with South Bay, especially like being more of a ball handler and playing more on the perimeter and stuff, just how he was able to get to his spots,” he said. “He just looked like he was never sped up, the game’s in slow motion for him, and to see him, how he attacked different things, I was just kind of watching as a fan and a student, and it was cool.”