The Los Angeles Lakers released their injury report for Tuesday’s game against the San Antonio Spurs and Luka Doncic (left hamstring strain), LeBron James (left foot arthritis), Austin Reaves (left calf injury management) and Marcus Smart (right ankle soreness) are all listed as out.
Additionally, Deandre Ayton (right knee soreness) is questionable and Adou Thiero (right MCL sprain) has been upgraded to available for the first time since the end of December.
With it being the second night of a back-to-back, the Lakers are being cautious with all of their key players and sitting them out in order to get healthy. This is the Lakers’ second-to-last game before the All-Star break.
Doncic suffered his injury in the second quarter of last week’s win over the Philadelphia 76ers and has missed the last two games with the Lakers splitting them, beating the Golden State Warriors and then losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
After the game against the Spurs, the Lakers will close out the first half of the season on Thursday against the Dallas Mavericks. Doncic will obviously want to play against his former team, but it doesn’t make sense to push him if the hamstring is still bothering him. The same could be said for NBA All-Star Weekend, where Doncic was named a starter.
As far as the other injured players go, there’s no reason to believe it is anything serious as they all played on Monday. In their absence though, other players like Thiero, Kobe Bufkin, Luke Kennard, Jaxson Hayes, Rui Hachimura and Jarred Vanderbilt will see increased opportunities.
This will mark James’ 18th missed game of the season, which means he is longer qualified for regular-season awards like All-NBA.
Austin Reaves: Lakers need Luka Doncic
It’s been a rough year for the Lakers due to injuries as LeBron James, Austin Reaves, Luka Doncic and others have all missed time. Reaves just got back to put the Lakers at full strength really for the first time, but now Doncic has missed time with this hamstring injury.
You have to be cautious with hamstring injuries, but Reaves is hoping his backcourt mate will be back in the lineup soon.
“I talked to (Doncic) a little bit at halftime, asked if he was OK, and he kind of just looked at me,” Reaves said. “Hopefully it’s nothing major. We need him. He’s our best player and the engine of a lot of stuff that we do. Hopefully it’ll be good news tomorrow.”
If Doncic doesn’t make enough progress before Thursday’s game, then he would get a week off for the All-Star break to get his hamstring back to 100%.
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