Austin Rivers/Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Clippers

Austin Rivers hasn’t been able to eat what he normally does since he took an accidental elbow to the mouth from rookie Branden Dawson when Dawson was going up for a layup during a practice Oct. 9 in Shenzhen, China.

“A lot of shakes and soup and stuff like that,” Rivers told reporters Sunday morning at the Clippers’ practice facility in Playa Vista. “I can’t eat a lot of stuff; a lot of protein to keep my weight up.”

Rivers had one of his teeth knocked out and three more that nearly were. He talked about the incident, not that he’s yet able to speak normally, what with all the damage done.

“One of my teeth came out and the other three just kind of bent back in my mouth, so they were kind of just hanging,” he said.

Rivers sat out a game against the Charlotte Hornets the next day in Shenzhen. He did play in Wednesday’s rematch with Charlotte in Shanghai, however. Rivers, 23, said he had never been the recipient of such a vicious elbow.

“No, no, no,” he said. “It cut up my gums, I had to get stitches all in my gums. I’ve gotten a tooth knocked out, but not four at one time. So it was pretty painful.

“I mean, it was swollen for like a week. I just got a root canal yesterday, so it’s pretty sore again.”