The Los Angeles Lakers’ eight-game winning streak was snapped on Saturday night to their historic rivals the Boston Celtics. Adding insult to injury, LeBron James exited late in the fourth quarter with a groin strain.
Unfortunately, this came at a poor time as L.A. embarks on a daunting March schedule. The purple and gold now have six games in eight nights, with four being against playoff-caliber teams.
With seeding becoming more important as the regular season winds down, staying at the second seed is a tall ask with James out. However, Austin Reaves hopes the 40-year-old is back sooner rather than later to keep the good times rolling, via Spectrum Sportsnet:
“I mean, you never want to see one of your brothers have to leave the game due to injury. Whatever the case may be, like JJ said, we don’t know exactly what it is but obviously like I said, you never want to see anybody go out. He’s a huge part of what we do so hopefully we get some good news and he gets back quick.”
There is no replacing the all-time leading scorer, but Luka Doncic possessing a similar skillset to James certainly helps. Reaves can pick up the slack as well, knowing they will all need to contribute in James’ absence:
“It’s a next man up mentality. Like you said, we’ve had many situations where a player deals with some type of injury or a new trade or whatever it is, and we’ve done a really good job of bouncing back. And I don’t expect anything else. Like I said, it’s a next man up mentality and not one person is gonna do what Bron does for us. But you can do it as a collective and like I said, hopefully he gets back on the court soon.”
Head coach JJ Redick is going to rely heavily on Doncic and Reaves to carry their offense moving forward. Reaves is no stranger to ball-handling duties and he will get back to running his own units when Doncic needs a rest.
Although this injury came at a bad time, this is a chance for L.A. to have players step up and possibly get unexpected wins. A majority of March contains above .500 teams as seven of their remaining 13 games are currently in playoff spots.
Initial diagnosis on LeBron James groin injury
When LeBron James exited with his groin strain, he recalled a similar injury back in 2018 on Christmas Day when he missed over a month. Thankfully, it is believed to not be serious as the initial diagnosis is expected to be one to two weeks for the Lakers star.
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