{"id":445434,"date":"2026-01-29T15:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T15:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/445434\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T15:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T15:50:07","slug":"rocket-arena-court-issues-again-in-the-spotlight-after-doncic-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/445434\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Arena court issues again in the spotlight after Doncic fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lakers G Luka Doncic \u201cavoided serious injury after falling off the side of the Cavaliers\u2019 raised court\u201d at Rocket Arena on Wednesday, but the \u201cthreat of a player being hurt by Cleveland\u2019s unique 10-inch drop off between the court and the arena floor came into focus again\u201d during the Lakers\u2019 129-99 loss to the Cavaliers. Lakers coach JJ Redick said, \u201cIt is absolutely a safety hazard, and I don\u2019t know why it\u2019s still like that.\u201d Rocket Arena is also home to the AHL\u2019s Cleveland Monsters, and the basketball court is \u201craised to accommodate the ice underneath the floor.\u201d But \u201cseveral teams in the NBA, including the Lakers, share their arena with hockey teams and none have a court that drops off like Cleveland\u2019s\u201d (L.A. TIMES, 1\/28<\/a>). <\/p>\n

In 2023, Heat G Dru Smith injured his right knee \u201cwhen he got stuck between the court and arena floor contesting a 3-point shot.\u201d The Heat \u201creportedly contacted the NBA with safety concerns after Smith\u2019s Grade 3 ACL sprain\u201d (THE ATHLETIC, 1\/28<\/a>). <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Wednesday\u2019s game also served as a homecoming for Lakers F LeBron James, who received a \u201ctouching tribute\u201d from the home team and \u201ccried\u201d in front of the sellout crowd. James has played in Cleveland eight times since leaving in 2018 and \u201cthere have been that many tribute videos\u201d — but he has \u201cnever reacted like\u202fthat.\u201d James said afterwards, \u201cI was just more present today than I\u2019ve been over the previous seven\u201d (Cleveland PLAIN DEALER, 1\/28<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lakers G Luka Doncic \u201cavoided serious injury after falling off the side of the Cavaliers\u2019 raised court\u201d at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,726,590,85],"class_list":["post-445434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}