{"id":630779,"date":"2026-04-26T23:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T23:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/630779\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T23:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T23:48:08","slug":"kevin-durant-sits-again-as-rockets-face-elimination-entering-game-4-against-lakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/630779\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant sits again as Rockets face elimination entering Game 4 against Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Houston\u2019s Kevin Durant won\u2019t play Sunday night in Game 4 against the Los Angeles Lakers as the Rockets try to avoid being swept in the first-round Western Conference playoff series.<\/p>\n

Durant missed Game 3 with a sprained left ankle on Friday night, when the Rockets blew a six-point lead with less than 30 seconds to go<\/a> in regulation of an eventual 112-108 overtime loss to fall to 0-3 in the first-round series.<\/p>\n

This will be the third game of the series that Durant has missed after he sat out the opener with a bruised right knee. He returned for Game 2, scoring 23 points in 41 minutes of the 101-94 loss, during which he injured his ankle late in the game.<\/p>\n

His injury problems this postseason came after the 37-year-old ranked second in the league in the regular season by playing 2,840 minutes.<\/p>\n

Durant, who is in his first season in Houston after an offseason trade from Phoenix, is the fifth-leading scorer in NBA history.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Houston\u2019s Kevin Durant won\u2019t play Sunday night in Game 4 against the Los Angeles Lakers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[102422,2843,102423,102421,6643,49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-630779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ap-online-sports-headlines","9":"tag-ap-top-news","10":"tag-ap-top-news-l-twc-regions","11":"tag-ap-top-news-sports","12":"tag-associated-press","13":"tag-ca","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}