The Los Angeles Lakers released their injury report for Sunday’s regular season finale against the Utah Jazz and LeBron James (left foot injury management) and Jaxson Hayes (left foot injury management) are both questionable.
The Lakers will also continue to be without both Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, of course, but everyone else is good to go in the 82nd and final game of the season.
That includes Marcus Smart, who returned to the Lakers’ lineup on Friday night against the Phoenix Suns after missing nine games with an ankle injury. Smart said he felt good physically in his return to action and appreciated the organization being cautious and giving him as much time as he needed to get healthy.
Smart was on a minutes restriction against Phoenix, only playing 18 minutes, but he and head coach JJ Redick are both hoping to see that number increase against Utah.
It will be interesting to see if James suits up as a win for the Lakers and a loss by the Denver Nuggets would give L.A. the third seed and a first round matchup with the Minnesota Timberwolves as opposed to the fourth seed and a matchup with the Houston Rockets.
The Lakers will have home-court advantage regardless though, so if James isn’t feeling healthy then it doesn’t make sense to play him.
The same can be said for Hayes, who has missed the last two games with his foot issue. After Sunday, the Lakers won’t play again until the following Saturday or Sunday when the postseason starts, which would give James and Hayes plenty of time to rest up to get back to 100%.
JJ Redick proud of Lakers for overcoming adversity
Injuries have plagued the Lakers all season long, but they still managed to win more than 50 games and clinched home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
Because of that, Redick is proud of what his team accomplished and how much adversity they overcame.
“I would say I’m extremely proud of our team, our players and our coaches, for dealing with the entire NBA season,” Redick said. “I think for maybe one or two teams a year they don’t have a lot of ups and downs and the roller coaster is fairly flat. But for most every team in the NBA, your ability to bounce back from failure is the key to the aggregation of what your season is. You hope you can win 50-plus games and you hope you can get home-court advantage in the first round and be a top seed. I know none of you guys had us in the top four to begin the season, that’s just a reality. Most people had us as a Play-In team or even worse. So we’ve had to manage the expectations of the Lakers and also the negativity that just surrounds every loss. I think our group has managed that well.”
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