The Los Angeles Lakers have listed LeBron James (left ankle peroneal tendinopathy) as questionable, Anthony Davis (bilateral Achilles teninopathy) as probable and Cam Reddish (right ankle sprain) as out for Saturday night’s game against the Golden State Warriors.
Gabe Vincent, Christian Wood, Colin Castleton and Jarred Vanderbilt all remain out with their respective injuries with no set timetable for a return although head coach Darvin Ham said at practice on Friday that there should be an update on all of them soon.
Vincent recently progressed to non-contact work and Vanderbilt appears to be making progress as well, so the hope is they will be back before the end of the regular season.
The ankle injury is something that James has had to manage over the last couple of months. He underwent a treatment during the All-Star break and has missed two games in the second half, one of which was against the Warriors, although he has been able to play in all of the other ones.
Given where the standings are at and how important this matchup is against the Warriors, both James and Davis will likely be in the lineup for L.A. The Lakers are 1-1 against the Warriors this season and will need this game not only to stay ahead in the standings, but also to earn the tiebreakers over their division foes.
Reddish being out for another game in unfortunate for the Lakers as he continues to deal with an ankle injury that has had him in and out of the lineup for a while. His perimeter defense would have certainly been welcomed against the Warriors.
Speaking of the Warriors, they are expected to get Stephen Curry back in the lineup after dealing with an ankle issue of his own, meaning all of the stars should be in action Saturday night in primetime in L.A.
Darvin Ham discusses importance of Lakers’ game against Warriors
At this stage of the season everyone knows how important every game is for the Lakers, but head coach Darvin Ham spoke on just how crucial this one against the Warriors is.
“Extremely important,” Ham said after practice on Friday. “I thought today was a great day, energy was high. We went through the Sacramento film and just some other things that we can work on, mixed in how we’ve been playing here as of late, some clips from Minnesota or whatever. But for the most part, it was looking at how we can slow down the generation of 3s that are being piled on us. So we looked at that, looked at the rebounding, looked at how we played different schemes on the ball and looked at our offense. We looked at the stretch of the third quarter last game in Sac and looked at the possessions where we were really giving ourselves and advantage with our pace, our screens.
“I thought it was good, a lot of dialogue with a few different guys. I think that’s been great, that’s why we’ve been able to respond after some of these disappointing losses. We look it right dead in the face in the mirror in front of ourselves, coaches and players, and see how we can get better. But definitely one we got onto the floor, we touched on Golden State. We’ll do it again tomorrow so we feel solid about the way we play them, just some little different switch ups here and there that I won’t reveal right now. But we feel good about our chances, for sure.”
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