The Los Angeles Lakers ended their road trip with an extremely disappointing loss as they were blown out by the San Antonio Spurs, 129-115.
While it doesn’t excuse falling to a team that had lost a franchise-record 18 straight games, the Lakers were extremely shorthanded on Friday night.
Coming off back-to-back 37-point efforts, Anthony Davis was not able to play due to rolling his left ankle in Wednesday’s win against the Spurs. Davis wasn’t the only missing Lakers starter as Cam Reddish also sat out with a knee issue and D’Angelo Russell with an illness.
Head coach Darvin Ham provided updates on all three of the injured starters after the loss and did not sound too concerned about them moving forward, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“Obviously they’re all dealing with some different issues, various issues. I think D-Lo’s situation is more under the weather. And then obviously A.D. is with his ankle and Cam with his knee. But throughout it all, we just got to get healthy. We got a big week coming up. Tomorrow, we’ll be further updated, guys will get treatment and then hopefully come back ready to work on Sunday to start our big week out with New York on Monday.”
The good news for the Lakers is they now return home after their long road trip and have a couple of days off before hosting the New York Knicks at Crypto.com Arena on Monday night.
In addition to getting Davis, Russell and Reddish back in the lineup, the Lakers could get some more reinforcements in the form of Gabe Vincent. The guard has missed all but four games this season with left knee effusion but recent reports indicate he is targeting a return against the Knicks.
But Ham was not willing to commit to that being the case when asked about Vincent’s status:
“We won’t speculate. Once we get our update on Gabe, we’ll let you guys know. He had a good workout today and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
The Lakers surely won’t rush Vincent back, so he will not play unless he’s 100% recovered. Once Vincent is back from injury, the Lakers will be even closer to full strength, which is vital with a tough part of the schedule on the horizon.
Victor Wembanyama studied Anthony Davis
It’s a shame that Davis was not able to suit up on Friday because he and Spurs rookie Victor Wembanyama had an awesome matchup on Wednesday with both star big men scoring 30-plus points.
Wembanyama shared high praise for Davis after the game, revealing the Lakers’ big man was someone he studied before coming to the NBA in order to get better.
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