Already playing without primary ball-handlers LeBron James and Dennis Schröder, the Lakers lost another one of their top scorers during Thursday’s loss to the Clippers, when Anthony Davis exited due to back spasms.
As Dave McMenamin of ESPN details, Davis left Thursday’s game in the first quarter and didn’t return. The Lakers’ All-Star big man also tweaked his right ankle, though he said his back injury was the issue that knocked him out of the game.
The Lakers have a crucial game on tap for Friday night in Portland — the two teams are tied in the standings for No. 6 in the West, and have split their two games so far this season. The winner of tonight’s game will earn the end-of-season tiebreaker and will be in great position to avoid the play-in tournament, so L.A. would love to have Davis available.
According to McMenamin, Davis said late on Thursday night that he anticipates being able to suit up against the Blazers in what he called “probably the biggest game” left on the schedule. He’s listed on the latest injury report as probable.
Here are a few more injury updates from around the NBA:
- Celtics wing Jaylen Brown, who missed Wednesday’s game with a right ankle sprain, will also be out on Friday. However, Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge said during a radio appearance that he thinks Brown will be back for Sunday’s game vs. Miami (Twitter link via Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston).
- The Rockets have a whopping 13 players on their injury report for Friday’s contest in Milwaukee, writes Danielle Lerner of The Houston Chronicle. Kevin Porter Jr. (ankle) and Avery Bradley (personal) are among nine players who have been ruled out. And, as Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle points out (via Twitter), the four players not on the injury report have made 10 combined NBA starts.
- The Rockets did get one piece of good news today, as Feigen tweets that Jae’Sean Tate has cleared the health and safety protocols. Tate registered a false positive for COVID-19, followed by three negative tests. However, he’s still listed as questionable for Friday’s game due to a left knee contusion.
Lakers next 3 games
Blazers
Suns
Knicks
Lakers have choices in the First round playoffs
Clippers or Suns
What would you like, Lakers fans?
Suns or Clippers can’t even pass the first round?
Suns would be a great matchup for LA – Phoenix has an unreliable front court, no way Ayton, Saric and Kaminsky wont be able to even slow down AD and LeBron
The Lakers will have choices in the first round, but only if they make the playoffs. Their primary concern right now is getting past the play-in tournament.
Lmao of course you say that. Lakers ain’t losing to the Spurs or Warriors in the play in. They’ll easily be a top 8 seed.
Why can’t they? I don’t know if it is the most likely scenario, but if you told me Dallas beat the Lakers and then Steph had a monster game and won it for the Warriors I wouldn’t be surprised.
Rockets went from the best team to the worst team
You think Lakers go from Championship to playing lottery ?
Lol
21-6 to start the season, then they go 16-24 over the next 40 games to drop from 1st to 7th. This’ll be an historic collapse for the Lakers.
The Lakers didn’t have their 2 best players and are still twice the basketball franchise as the also ran Houston Rockets
Clippers because that franchise is still cursed from Donald sterling’s ownership years
The walking injury brow. This guy didn’t get his weight up at all. Still skinny and wimpy. Steph Curry put on 10 pounds of muscle and AD still looks brittle…
Steph and the mighty Warriors had a 9 month offseason leaving much time to lift weights, convert to Islam, etc. Davis had 2 months of an offseason coming off a long playoff grind and hasn’t gotten his legs underneath him. Zion missed half of last season and just broke his finger does he need to bulk up too?
Zion is already chiseled, how can you compare him to brittle AD?? I highly doubt Jordan or Kobe would have made excuses. But the players have guys like you to give a sad story for them, after all you didn’t have to begin adulting right away.
What would Jesus…I mean Jordon do?
First off, Zion was out of shape entering last preseason and missed a month or so to start the year. There have been injury concerns here. Second, I would normally find the old school player argument valid, but no other time in history have players had a 1-2 month offseason with a condensed schedule. You can’t say Kobe and Jordan would have done differently as they never experienced it.
I compare him to Zion because he’s missed more games over the past 2 seasons than AD despite his Godlike physique. And somehow Davis is the brittle one. Seems like you’re more concerned with how the guy looks in the uniform than facts…
Really? Cause it seems that you are so concerned about AD it’s like you have a crush on him. It’s been proven that adding more muscle helps to reduce major injury. Bron rarely gets injured and he’s been super fit since coming into the league. Sure there are anomalies like KD who wasn’t really much of an injury prone guy until the achilles in 2019.
He likes Zion’s dump truck
Don’t think it’s fair to put that on him this year. Not only did the Lakers have basically no offseason to recover its combined with a condensed schedule.
Lakers are done if they get the 7th seed
Does anyone really feel bad for LBJ and the Lakers. I know I don’t at all. I’m hoping CP3 gets to a Finals
GOAT to Switch to play’in mode
#7-8 are better than #3-6… as UTA & PHO are easier teams to beat than DEN, LAC, DAL & POR… so I can’t really see your point… but whatever ticks you off!
Try to pass the warriors/blazers first with a sorry AD and a one foot LeBron … Then 3long PO series Utah/suns + Dallas/blazers + clipps/Denver + BK/76/bucks… from Astérisque to Epic Lakers
CP3 had an easy path to the Finals but cost his team a championship by getting hurt. The 2021 Suns aren’t even close to the 2018 Rockets. Phoenix won’t get past Utah, Denver, or the Clippers.
At the end of the season the C’s need to make a choice Tatum or Brown and then use the other in a big name trade target like Lillard, Beal, Porziņģis or KAT that if any of them become available
I just don’t think they can play together sometimes it feels more like their competing against each other than the opposing team
So if they could get one I think they should go hard after Beal him and Tatum are good friends and played together as kids so they would have great chemistry on the court