Los Angeles Lakers announced that guard Wayne Ellington was ruled out of Tuesday night’s game against the Houston Rockets due to a non-COVID illness. He did not travel with the team, so it’s likely he will sit out Wednesday’s game against the Memphis Grizzlies as well.
The news comes at an unfortunate time for the Lakers, who are still without Austin Reaves, Kent Bazemore, Trevor Ariza and Rajon Rondo due to health and safety protocols in addition to Anthony Davis and Kendrick Nunn, who are dealing with knee injuries.
While so many players have been out, Ellington entered the starting lineup for the Lakers and provided some much-needed floor spacing. Overall in 26 games this season, averaging 6.4 points while shooting 36.8% from 3-point range.
Luckily, L.A. has got some guards back in recent days, including Talen Horton-Tucker, Malik Monk and Avery Bradley. One of the latter two will likely replace Ellington in the starting lineup while he is out.
Tuesday night is a big game for the Lakers though as they have the chance to snap a five-game losing streak. Even though this season hasn’t gone as planned, the Lakers are still just one game out of the 5 seed in the Western Conference, so they have a chance to turn things around as they get closer to full strength.
Even though the Lakers have already beaten the Rockets twice though, their young team is no pushover, so the shorthanded Lakers cannot take them lightly on the road in the first game of a back-to-back.
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