The hits keep coming for the Lakers.
Luka Doncic’s hamstring injury took center stage from Thursday’s loss to the Thunder, but Austin Reaves was also injured. He, however, was able to return to the game and, afterward, said it felt better.
After practice on Saturday in Dallas, head coach JJ Redick revealed that Reaves had imaging done on his oblique and the team was still awaiting results. In fact, he had an MRI twice for the most hilarious reason possible.
“The second one was today,” Redick said. “I
don’t know where the chain of command lies with Dallas imaging, but they scanned the wrong area. Not on our end. We made it explicit where it was supposed to be scanned but they scanned the wrong area.”
Somehow, this is very fitting for how the Lakers season has gone.
Redick clarified that the injury is “more intercostal, rib, oblique than it is back.” However, in reading between the lines a bit, it didn’t sound like Austin would play on Sunday against the Mavericks.
Earlier in his media scrum when speaking about how the team would adapt to being without Luka Dončić, Redick spoke about playing through other players, but had one line slip through that might be telling of the status of Austin, as well as Marcus Smart, for Sunday’s game.
“We’ll just wait and see until Austin and Smart are back,” Redick said.
The Lakers have five games over the final eight days of the season. After playing in Dallas on Sunday, they’ll return home to play the Thunder on Tuesday. They will then have a back-to-back in Golden State on Thursday before returning home for their final playing at home against the Suns and Jazz to wrap up the season.
It’s a sprint to the finish and one the team could certainly use Austin Reaves for to maintain their spot in the standings.
While there is no injury report out yet, Redick said that Marcus Smart’s status was TBD heading into Sunday’s game. He said Smart still had some lingering soreness in his ankle from Goga Bitadze falling on it. He did note that the hip injury was healed.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
