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LOS ANGELES — Clayton Kershaw’s comeback from a third back injury in three years will continue Thursday afternoon when he faces the Chicago Cubs in the finale of a four-game series.

It is the last time the Dodgers and Cubs will meet in the regular season Marquise Goodwin Jersey , but as the last two National League Championship Series have shown, a high-profile series in October is a possibility.

Thursday’s afternoon game at Dodger Stadium is also the end of a jammed-packed run that will see the Cubs and Dodgers face each other for the seventh time in 10 days. Each team has beaten the other three times after the Dodgers earned a 7-5 victory Wednesday.

Kershaw (1-4, 2.94 ERA) has already had two disabled list stints this season. He missed nearly four weeks in May with left biceps tendinitis, and after only five innings of his return from that injury, he hit the DL again with a lower back strain.

In his return Saturday at New York against the Mets, Kershaw gave up two runs on five hits over three innings, as he was held to 55 pitches. He was supposed to have a minor league rehab start that day, but a poor weather forecast for their Triple-A Oklahoma team led the Dodgers to shift gears.

While Kershaw is expected to get more leeway Thursday, he still figures to be on a pitch restriction that manager Dave Roberts will determine.

“I feel 100 percent,” Kershaw told ESPN this week. “It’s just a matter of building up pitch-count wise and just make sure we’re getting to that 110-, 120-pitch count limit.”

Kershaw is 5-3 with a 2.64 ERA in nine career starts against the Cubs.

Kershaw will square off against fellow left-hander Jose Quintana (6-6 Ty Sambrailo Jersey , 4.26) on Thursday. Quintana has not thrown 100 pitches in any of his last six starts and has completed six innings once in four June starts.

Quintana has not won a start since May 31 while posting a 4.15 ERA over 21 2/3 June innings. He has not given up an earned run in two career starts against the Dodgers, but is 0-1 against Los Angeles

The Cubs have scored 14 runs in two nights after hitting coach Chili Davis held a meeting with the offense. And while the improved offense was much needed, the Cubs are 1-1 in those two games since the meeting.

Now comes a matchup with Kershaw, who is never a pushover, whether he is coming off an injury or not.

“I’m still looking forward to, as we get more mature in the batter’s box, that we chase less,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “I like homers just like everybody else does, but there are so many other ways to score. Industry-wide, that’s probably everybody’s biggest problem. I want power and I want that little dumper to the right side.”

For the Dodgers, it has been all about power in June. They hit three more home runs Wednesday and now have 51 in June Kalen Ballage Jersey , two short of the club record for a single month.

Joc Pederson, Max Muncy and Cody Bellinger hit home runs Wednesday. Pederson has a major league-leading 10 home runs in June, Muncy has nine and Bellinger has eight.

The Cubs are 1-6 on their eight-game road trip to Cincinnati and L.A. and are 3-9 in regular-season games at Dodger Stadium since the start of 2015.

OKLAHOMA CITY — The two most pivotal players in the first-round series between Oklahoma City and Utah are the Thunder’s Russell Westbrook and the Jazz’s Rudy Gobert.

That happens when one is perhaps the most athletic player in the league and regularly gets to the rim against virtually everyone and the other is the 7-foot-1 rim protector.

But Paul George and Donovan Mitchell are very important too, for their teams.

In the Thunder’s 116-108 Game 1 win, George was mostly lights-out for Oklahoma City. He hit 8-of-11 from behind the 3-point line and scored 36 points to help lift the Thunder.

Mitchell, one of the leading candidates for Rookie of the Year honors, scored 27 points in his playoff debut, going 11-of-22 from the floor.

Entering Wednesday night’s Game 2, both are hobbled.

While both George and Mitchell are officially listed as questionable, George with a hip contusion and Mitchell with a left foot contusion, there’s little doubt they will both play even after they were both limited in practice Tuesday.

The question is Bo Jackson Jersey , though, how effective will either be after suffering their injuries Sunday.

Mitchell brushed off the injury after the game. He initially returned after suffering the injury but came out of the game for good about a minute later.

“I just stubbed my toe,” Mitchell said. “Nothing major.”

George was hurt driving on Gobert in the second quarter.

“I fell on my left side and from there is just got a little sore on me,” George said, adding that it was an aggravation of an injury he suffered March 13 against Atlanta.

Thunder coach Billy Donovan said it would largely be up to George how much he was able to play.

“Paul’s a tough guy,” Donovan said. “Paul wants to be out there. We’re never going to put a player’s health at risk in any way. So, I think that’s probably going to be a little bit more of his decision on how he’s feeling in terms of the way he’s moving.”

In addition to Mitchell being ready to contribute, the Jazz also need Ricky Rubio to play under control if they are to head back home for Game 3 with a tied series.

The seventh-year guard is making his first playoff appearance and went 5-of-18 from the field, finishing with 13 points.

“Well, some of them were good shots, some of them not Fred Warner Jersey ,” Rubio told the Salt Lake Tribune. “Just have to do a better job on getting involved (with) some of my teammates sometimes. Do a better job of knowing when to shoot and when to pass the ball.”

For the Thunder, being able to deal with Utah’s tough, hard-nosed defense — keyed by Gobert — remains a major point of emphasis.

“I think the word ‘physicality’ gets used in a way that sometimes people think it’s just, like, guys banging into each other,” Donovan said. “Some of it is just really getting over screens, legally and physically getting over it, trying to avoid being screened. Some of it is running back in transition and being able to get into spots where you can absorb drives. Some of it is, there’s a pick-and-roll and someone’s rolling to the basket and being there to provide help.”