Bargnani sprained his right elbow in the first quarter of Toronto’s 118-116 road loss to the Los Angeles Lakers last Friday night and did not return.

The Raptors said the injury is not related to the ligament problem in his elbow that sidelined him for more than 25 games earlier this season.

The top pick in the 2006 draft, Bargnani is averaging 12.7 points and 3.7 rebounds in 35 games this season, a major drop off from his production over the past few years.

Bargnani, 27, had appeared in 14 of 15 games, including four straight starts, before suffering the injury on Friday.

Bargnani’s name has even come up in trade rumors since the Raptors are struggling this season, but he has two years and about $22 million left on his contract.

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The New York Knicks forward suffered the injury early in the first quarter of the Knicks’ 92-88 loss to Toronto when DeMar DeRozan elbowed him in the arm on a drive.

Anthony said he felt numbness throughout the game and called the contusion “kind of deep.”

If he feels discomfort leading up to Sunday evening’s game, Anthony said he would sit out rather than risk further injury.

“I’m not going to force it, definitely not going to force it,” Anthony said. “As bad as I would want to play in the All-Star Game, participate, if I can’t go, I can’t go. Nothing I can do about that.”

Anthony struggled with his shot throughout the Knicks’ loss on Wednesday, their third in four games heading into the All-Star break.

Anthony missed 19-of-24 shots and had just 12 points. It was the third game this season in which he failed to score 20 points.

The injury affected Anthony’s shot throughout the game.

“It was kind of like a dead arm out there,” he said. “Just a matter of trying to get through it, trying to get some feeling back into it.”

Anthony, a six-time All-Star, entered play Wednesday averaging 29 points per game, tied with Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant for the highest mark in the NBA.

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Serge Ibaka added 17 points before fouling out late while helping the Thunder improve to a league-leading 33-9 and expand their lead in the Western Conference standings to 1½ games over the Clippers, who were without All-Star Chris Paul and fell to 32-11.

Blake Griffin had 31 points and 11 rebounds, and Jamal Crawford added 14 points off the bench. Eric Bledsoe scored 12 points starting in place of Paul, who missed his fourth game because of a bruised right kneecap. He missed three road wins last week, then played the next two games but it was obvious Paul wasn’t himself so he was held out Tuesday.

The Clippers had won four straight at home against the Thunder, and they led much of the first quarter before giving up the lead for good early in the second.

Los Angeles made a run to start the fourth, with Grant Hill and Crawford combining to score seven in a row and close to 82-75. That was as close as the Clippers came in losing their second straight.

Durant keyed a 3-point barrage over the next nearly 4 minutes, making three of them himself while Westbrook added one and Ibaka had another to extend the Thunder’s lead to 99-82 — their largest of the game. Durant scored on a driving dunk to make it 101-85, then punctuated it by punching his right arm in the air.

The Clippers cut their deficit to 105-97. After Westbrook missed, Griffin raced down court and proceeded to throw the ball into the seats. He bent over with his head in his hands.

Having beaten the Clippers in overtime in November, the Thunder won the season series, with one game remaining on Jan. 22.

Oklahoma City pulled away to a 77-61 lead in the third on a 3-pointer by Thabo Sefolosha and a fast break dunk by Westbrook. The Clippers cut it to nine on seven straight points, including four by Crawford, before the Thunder scored the last five points to lead 82-68 going into the fourth.

The Thunder controlled the second, taking their first lead of the game on Kevin Martin’s 3-pointer 45 seconds in. That launched a 13-2 run that gave the Thunder a nine-point lead, their largest to that point. Griffin scored the Clippers’ final six points to help them close to 49-45 at halftime.

The Clippers led by eight before the Thunder closed the first quarter on an 8-0 run to tie the game at 22-all.

Game notes

It was Paul’s bobblehead night. … Clippers F Caron Butler swatted away a shot in the second quarter and the ball hit referee Derek Richardson in the head, knocking him backward to the court. He wasn’t hurt. … The Thunder improved to 2-1 on their season-high six-game trip. … The Clippers agreed to a 10-year extension of their lease at Staples Center, where they are one of the arena’s original tenants. The extension takes effect at the end of this season, and will keep them in the arena through June 2024.

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Jones alluded to two losses — at Seattle in Week 2 and to Chicago at Cowboys Stadium in Week 4, when Dallas’ defense was almost completely healthy — as part of the reasons why he let Ryan go.

The Cowboys lost to the Seahawks, 27-7, but two special-teams turnovers put Dallas into a 10-0 hole in the first quarter. As a defense, the Cowboys were missing only one starter, nose tackle Jay Ratliff, to injury.

In the 34-18 loss to the Bears, quarterback Tony Romo threw five interceptions, with two of those returned for touchdowns. The Cowboys were missing two defensive starters to injury in that game, Anthony Spencer and Ratliff.

“I didn’t like the way we were playing in a lot of cases,” Jones said in the taped interview that will air in its entirety Saturday night on KTVT-TV in Dallas. “I thought we could play better before the injuries, and so I factored that in. It wasn’t like we had a lot of injuries out here when we played Chicago. It wasn’t like we had a lot of injuries when we played Seattle. I didn’t like the way we played there.

“It’s not hard for me to go to those games and say what can we do to improve when we played Seattle and when we played Chicago, and I liked the way we played in subsequent games and I know we didn’t have the talent level on the field that we had when we played Seattle and Chicago.”

The Cowboys played a bulk of the season without five starters and two major contributors to their defense. In the last two games of the regular season, Pro Bowl outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware, who led the team with 11.5 sacks, played with one arm. He was dealing with injuries to his elbow and shoulder and he will undergo surgery to repair a right shoulder injury Thursday.

During the season, the Cowboys never used the injuries to the defense as an excuse, but Ryan noted he had to mix and match personnel because of it.

“When we weren’t short-handed, we were kicking ass,” Ryan said Tuesday night after being released. “We weren’t at full strength ever, but we were pretty damn close and pretty damn good. We were a long way from 31st. If I’m fired on the last six games, that’s OK.”

As a defense, the Cowboys finished 19th overall, 22nd against the run and 19th against the pass.

But Jones was hoping for a much better effort from the defense.

“It’s not hard for me to go back there and say, ‘OK, we had all of our players out there we had our talent level there,’ ” Jones said. “That’s what we’ve been saying we didn’t have. Now let’s evaluate that. When we had all of our talent level, we’ve got to be able to beat Chicago at home and we’ve got to be able to go to Seattle and win that game there.

“We know they’re formidable. We know Seattle had a good football team and I don’t think we underestimated Seattle at all when we played them. But you’re going to have to get to where we want to go and you have to go into Seattle and win games in Seattle.”

Jones also acknowledged that the Cowboys’ poor recent performance against their divisional rivals factored into his decision.

“We certainly do need to not change for change sake,” he said. “But basically we need to look at what we’re doing. I’ve heard it even criticized that maybe we shouldn’t look at the matchups. We play six games in a 16-game schedule against our division, and we need to be successful in that division. We let Washington beat us twice this year, Philadelphia beat us twice last year — so all of those things are under our consideration.”

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