Lakers celebrity Luka Doncic sustained a left hamstring harm in Thursday’s sport at Oklahoma City and won’t return, per the staff. The Slovenian guard will endure an MRI on Friday to find out the severity of the harm, sources inform Dave McMenamin of ESPN (Twitter link).
Doncic’s harm occurred with about 7:42 remaining within the third quarter (Twitter link). The Lakers have been down 38 factors on the time and wound up dropping by 43, their largest margin of defeat this season, tweets Jovan Buha.
Doncic truly initially tweaked his hamstring in with a couple of minute left within the first half, notes Khobi Price of The California Post (Twitter video link). Head coach JJ Redick stated after the sport that Doncic was cleared to return for the second half regardless of the lopsided rating, in accordance with Dan Woike of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Any sort of prolonged absence for Doncic could be devastating to Los Angeles’ postseason probabilities. He had been on an unimaginable tear main as much as Thursday, serving to information the Lakers to a 15-2 report in March (14-2 when he performed) en path to profitable Western Conference Player of the Month. The 27-year-old was additionally nominated for Defensive Player of the Month.
Doncic became one among simply 10 gamers in league historical past to report in 600 factors in any calendar month. He did so throughout 16 contests, for a mean of 37.5 factors per sport. That run included a 60-point sport, a 51-point sport, and 5 further outings of not less than 40 factors.
Doncic, who was named first-team All-NBA 5 consecutive occasions from 2019-24, could be ineligible for main postseason awards if he misses the rest of the common season. The Lakers play 5 extra occasions earlier than the common season ends on April 12.
Through 63 video games (35.9 minutes per contest), Doncic was averaging a league-high 33.8 factors, 8.3 assists, 7.9 rebounds and 1.7 steals, with a capturing line of .477/.369/.779. He made his sixty fourth look on Thursday, however he performed between 15 and 20 minutes in two of these video games, which suggests he’d must play 20-plus minutes in a single further contest to fulfill the 65-game minimal.
Law Murray of The Athletic factors out that Doncic beforehand missed 4 video games due to that very same left hamstring and was just lately suspended one sport after accumulating 16 technical fouls (Twitter link).
Austin Reaves, who has been battling a number of nagging accidents, was additionally lower than 100% throughout Thursday’s blowout loss, Woike writes for The Athletic. He went to the locker room to be checked out within the first half and returned for the second, however exited the sport for good within the third quarter.
