The Los Angeles Lakers released their injury report for Sunday night’s game against the Portland Trail Blazers and Cam Reddish (left knee effusion) has been upgraded to probable while LeBron James (left ankle peroneal tendinopathy), Anthony Davis (bilateral Achilles tendinopathy) and Taurean Prince (left knee soreness) are listed as questionable.
It looks like the Lakers will be getting Reddish back to the lineup after missing the last three games with the knee issue. He injured the knee in a recent win over the Toronto Raptors and although he was able to start the following two games, he wasn’t able to play the second half of either.
Lakers head coach Darvin Ham said that he was considered day-to-day though, and now he appears on the verge of returning against the Trail Blazers.
Meanwhile, the availability of three of the Lakers’ starters is uncertain. James has been listed on the injury report as questionable for a while with the ankle issue and has been able to play through it, so that will hopefully be the case again against the Trail Blazers with the Lakers in dire need of a win.
Davis was downgraded from probable to questionable, however, so his status could be in jeopardy. The big man has been playing some of the best basketball of his career and has played in 41 of the Lakers’ 43 games this season. If Davis is feeling healthy enough to play, there’s no doubt he will try to give it a go.
Prince is a new addition to the injury report with knee soreness, which could be a result of him playing a career-high 30.6 minutes per game so far this season. If Prince is unable to play against the Trail Blazers, then Reddish could potentially take his spot in the starting lineup against his former team.
Darvin Ham says ‘it’s over for excuses’ for Lakers
The Lakers seemed to be starting to make some strides this last week with impressive back-to-back wins over the Oklahoma City Thunder and Dallas Mavericks.
They then had a solid first half on Friday night against the Brooklyn Nets before it all came crashing down in the third quarter, resulting in a blowout loss. That inconsistency has been a microcosm of the Lakers’ season so far, and Ham said after the loss that it’s time for the Lakers to stop making excuses.
“But at the end of the day, we tried to be as efficient as possible, watch a ton of film, we’ll definitely do that. Watch this game and make it more about our principles. And again, the type of team we want to be. It’s over for the excuses, man. We got to play basketball.”