LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles Clippers guard Chauncey Billups will miss Wednesday's game against the Dallas Mavericks and is out indefinitely with peroneal tendinitis in his left foot, the team announced.
Billups' injury is unrelated to the torn left Achilles he suffered on Feb. 6 which sidelined him for nearly 10 months before he returned last week and started three games.
"It's frustrating, of course, working that hard to come back and have to kind of sit back and wait," Billups said. "I know what it is. I respect the process and I'm not down at all. Of course, I want to be out there, but it is what it is. I know it's all about the marathon for me."
Willie Green, who started the first 14 games of the season but has not played since Billups' return, will once again start in Billups' place.
The Clippers don't have a timetable for Billups' return but anticipate he will be sidelined for at least a few days. The team has usually been cautious with these injuries in the past, especially with Billups, whose return was pushed back several weeks as he dealt with minor back and calf injuries during his rehabilitation.
"When he's ready, he'll go," Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said. "I don't have a timeframe for it. It could be this weekend, it could be in a week, two weeks, a month. I don't have a timeframe. When he says he's ready, he'll be out there."
Billups has averaged 7.3 points and 1.3 assists while playing close to 20 minutes per game since his return on Nov. 28, but said he hasn't felt right.
"It's something I've been dealing with for a couple of weeks even before I came back and played my first game," Billups said. "It's something I really wanted to get checked out because I've worked way too hard to get back to play hurt."
After the Clippers returned from beating the Utah Jazz on Monday night, Billups had an MRI on his left foot on Tuesday and was advised to sit until the inflammation calmed down.
"Honestly, in that Utah game, it was really painful and I couldn't really push off my left foot," Billups said. "It was just really weak. I couldn't explode off of it. I couldn't cut. Everything I was doing, I was just getting through it. I said, 'I should be better than this.' "
Billups also received a warning from the NBA for flopping late in the game against Utah. Billups pushed off Mo Williams' chest and flopped to the floor on a 3-point attempt and proceeded to tie the game at the free throw line.
"They call it a flop, I call it gamesmanship," Billups said. "They're trying to take gamesmanship out of the game. It's instincts. You can't change that. I worked hard learning the game. I'm not going to let that go because of what they're trying to do. I'm going to play how I play."