First, the last point. Chris Kaman, one of the Clippers actually shooting decently of late, skipped the morning shootaround Wednesday and waited until just minutes before game time to determine that he could play.

He started against the Denver Nuggets but played only the first quarter, scoring six points.

So, what was wrong with Kaman?

"Do you have like an hour to talk about it?" Clippers assistant coach Kim Hughes said jokingly.

Hughes was filling in for Coach Mike Dunleavy, who was in Texas for the funeral of his father-in-law.

Kaman has been hobbled by a strained left arch, and said he would probably need a cortisone shot after the Denver game to reduce the inflammation. He said he twisted it at the Oklahoma City game last week.

"I ice it every time," he said of his postgame routine. "There's nothing else that I can do. I got to stay on top of it. But it's progressively not getting better.

"I've been playing a lot of minutes. We've talked about limiting my minutes. . . . Right now it's pretty sore."

Said Hughes: "If you notice, he can't jump any more. He's been fighting through it. He's missed a lot of short layups because he can't finish at the rim."

Then there's struggling swingman Ricky Davis, who will probably be out for two weeks because of an inflamed tendon in his left knee.

He had an MRI exam on Tuesday that did not reveal any tears.

"It's awful," Davis said. " . . . It was just a lot of pain going on, had it for about two years. Right now, it's kind of like the worst thing."

Davis has shot poorly all season and said he felt as if his effectiveness was "like 60%."

"Kind of hurting the team more than anything. I decided to sit down and get it right," he said.

Funny man

Hughes was hilarious in his pregame chat with the media.

It was mentioned to him that the Clippers were short-handed because guard Jason Hart and forward Brian Skinner were out because of stomach viruses. They sit by each other in the locker room, coincidentally.

"We're used to it," Hughes said. "No one has a torn Achilles', so it's good."

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lisa.dillman@latimes.com