The Cleveland Cavaliers will be without another key player for at least the next few games.

The Cavaliers are off to a 15-0 start despite missing their fifth starter, Max Strus, for all 15 of those games. They have also been without sharpshooter Sam Merrill for the last few games, and on Sunday they saw Isaac Okoro and Dean Wade exit due to injuries.

The Cavs are in Boston tonight to take on the defending champion Celtics, and they will do so not only without Strus, but without Dean Wade as well, who has already been ruled out for the game. Isaac Okoro and Caris LeVert are both questionable for the game.

One of the reasons the Cavaliers have been so dominant to start the season is that they have exceptional depth on the perimeter to fill in between their on-ball guards and their non-shooting bigs. That depth has allowed them to absorb the loss of Strus, but player by player that strength will become a weakness if they lose too many of them to injury.

That’s especially important against the Celtics, a wing-heavy team that spaces the court out with a 5-out look on offense. The Cavaliers will want to downshift into lineups with four shooters around either Jarrett Allen or Evan Mobley, but that’s more difficult to do if they are without LeVert and Okoro, not to mention playing without Dean Wade, the ideal matchup for Jayson Tatum.

What’s more, the Cavaliers expect to be without Wade for multiple games.

How long will Dean Wade be out?

Dean Wade has been ruled out for Tuesday’s game against the Celtics due to an ankle injury that he sustained in the Cavaliers’ win over the Charlotte Hornets on Sunday. After an initial evaluation, sources close to Wade have told King James Gospel that Wade is expected to miss five or six days with the injury. It could certainly be worse, but it means the Cavs don’t have their best combo forward defender against the Celtics, the Pelicans or the Raptors, at least.

The schedule does offer a bit of a buffer, but the Cavaliers will certainly hope that Wade returns for the December 1st rematch with the Celtics at Rocket Mortgage Field House. Wade has been streaky from 3-point range at just 35.3 percent but has been one of the team’s best defenders and unlocks lineups that can be elite defensively while still providing floor-spacing at the 4.

Wade has also been called upon to play center in small-ball lineups without either Allen or Mobley, lineups that have performed surprisingly well. Without Wade available, head coach Kenny Atkinson will have to stick to more traditional lineups. Perhaps that’s what you want to do against a team as potent as the Celtics anyway, but it takes one club out of his bag.

At the time of publishing the statuses of Okoro and LeVert were unclear, and an update on Sam Merrill had not been provided either.