The Los Angeles Lakers will be without Lonzo Ball on Sunday in their matinee matchup with the New York Knicks, while Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Brandon Ingram are considered questionable. For Ball, it will be a fourth consecutive game missed since tweaking his knee.
The rookie point guard didn’t participate in shootaround on Saturday, but did manage to get on a treadmill. “That’s progress,” Lakers head coach Luke Walton said. He wasn’t certain how much work Ball did on the machine.
While it marked a step in the right direction for Ball, it hardly signals that a return is on the horizon. “There’s some steps that come after the treadmill,” Walton said.
“You’ve got to go on the court, do agility work, be able to cut, change direction, sprint, all that type of stuff before you get to try to practice.”
The Lakers’ win on Friday was their first in nine games without Ball this season.
Caldwell-Pope and Ingram, both of whom also did not play against the Indiana Pacers, were full participants in shootaround. “Now it’s just waiting to see how they respond to doing that type of activity,” Walton said.
“They’ll get treatment now, we’ll see how they feel later today, and more importantly how they feel tomorrow morning when they wake up.”
Caldwell-Pope suffered a sprained Achilles tendon in the second quarter of Wednesday’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. He attempted to warm up for the second half but was unable to continue playing.
Caldwell-Pope expressed initial optimism that the injury would not require him to miss any time.
Ingram tweaked his previously sprained ankle and did not play in the fourth quarter of that loss. He was considered a game-time decision for Friday’s game prior to being ruled out.
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