The Los Angeles Lakers announced that center Jaxson Hayes has been ruled out of Monday night’s game against the Miami Heat due to a left ankle sprain.
Hayes suffered the injury during Saturday night’s loss to the Orlando Magic although it is unclear when exactly it took place.
Regardless, the Lakers will once again be shorthanded against the Heat on Monday night in the second of their four-game road trip.
The good news is that Taurean Prince is expected to return after a two-game absence due to a knee injury. In addition to Hayes though, the Lakers will also be without Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent, Jarred Vanderbilt and Jalen Hood-Schifino due to various ailments.
With that being the case, head coach Darvin Ham will likely trot out an eight-man rotation, which will include Prince, D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, LeBron James and Anthony Davis in the starting lineup with Max Christie, Cam Reddish and Christian Wood coming off the bench.
Having such a short rotation and playing guys heavy minutes is definitely not ideal this early in the season, but the Lakers are really left with no choice due to how many guys are out with injuries.
This will mark the first game of the season that Hayes is forced to miss as he has averaged 1.5 points and 1.7 rebounds in 9.2 minutes across the team’s first six games. In his absence, Wood will likely see extended minutes backing up as well as playing alongside Davis against Miami.
It remains to be seen how much time Hayes will miss although an ankle sprain shouldn’t cause him to sit out more than a couple of games.
Davis discusses defensive rebounding issues
One of the Lakers’ biggest issues on the young season outside of health has been defensive rebounding. Despite playing bigger lineups involving Davis, Hayes and Wood, the Lakers have still been killed on the glass nightly.
After their most recent loss, Davis discussed the Lakers’ struggles on the defensive glass and how they can fix it.
“I mean it came from everybody honestly. Bigs contest, it’s on the guards. But then when the guards gotta contest, then the big gotta rebound so it was a collective problem tonight. Nothing that we didn’t know that they were going to do. They did it a couple of nights ago against us at home, but we were able to steal it. And then turnovers, so that’s what killed us.
“Obviously they made shots to start the game, but we let them feel comfortable. Even guys who we might just get a contest and dare them to shoot. They came out and felt very comfortable and as you make them shots and their team start going and getting confidence and playing off each other, playing off of the crowd just created a hole for us ourselves at the end of the first quarter. Even though we kind of tightened up the screws a little bit, it’s just the offensive rebounds killed us the entire game.”
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