{"id":252206,"date":"2026-04-04T23:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T23:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/252206\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T23:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T23:25:11","slug":"lakers-austin-reaves-out-for-regular-season-with-oblique-strain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/252206\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers’ Austin Reaves out for regular season with oblique strain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DALLAS\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Lakers<\/a> will be without their starting backcourt for the rest of the regular season \u2014 five more games \u2014 after Austin Reaves<\/a> was diagnosed with a Grade 2 left oblique strain on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Lakers coach JJ Redick said Reaves underwent an MRI exam on his left olbique\/rib area. <\/p>\n

The team learned earlier this week that Luka Doncic<\/a> has a Grade 2 left hamstring strain and will be out for the remainder of the regular season \u2014 and perhaps beyond. Grade 2 strains often take four to six weeks to heal.<\/p>\n

The Lakers are also dealing with an injury to guard Marcus Smart, who has missed the last six games because of a right ankle contusion and will be sidelined for the game Sunday at Dallas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s it\u2019s lingering soreness in the ankle,\u201d Redick said.<\/p>\n

Even with all of this, Redick said the Lakers\u2019 \u201cmission hasn\u2019t changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to get the third seed and we want to win a first-round series,\u201d Redick said.<\/p>\n

The Lakers are the third in the Western Conference, but Denver, Houston and Minnesota are within striking distance. The Lakers hold the tiebreaker over all three.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll try to hold on to the No. 3 seed over the final five games of the regular season without Doncic, who leads the NBA in scoring (33.5 points per game) and is fourth in assists (8.3), and Reaves, who is averaging 23.3 points, 5.5 assists and 4.7 rebounds.<\/p>\n

Each player was injured in the first half of a blowout loss on Thursday to Oklahoma City but returned to play in the second half.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Luka\u2019s gonna do everything he can to get back on the court,\u201d Redick said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what this recovery timetable looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lakers likely will have to lean more on LeBron James<\/a>, a role the 41-year-old is more than willing to take on. James has been designated the third option behind Doncic and Reaves yet has still averaged 20.6 points per game, 6.9 assists and 6.0 rebounds in his 23rd season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably is going to look a little bit differently with Luka being out,\u201d James said after practice. \u201cI\u2019ll figure that out and then, obviously, the coaches will figure it out as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lakers are making the mental adjustment of playing without Doncic. After the Mavericks, they\u2019ll have tough games against Oklahoma City, Golden State and Phoenix before finishing against lowly Utah on April 12.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it\u2019s a challenge for us,\u201d James said. \u201cIt\u2019s always got to be a next-man-up [mentality]. But there\u2019s no way you can replace that type of impact. So, it\u2019s going to be a collective group. We all have to figure out a way to do a little bit more. But even now, you got to be even more tightened up on the things that we do. When you lose a special player like that, you can\u2019t have as many mistakes. So, we got to figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Redick, speaking for the first time since news of Doncic\u2019s injury, he had to check on the temperature of his team to make sure his group was in the right space.<\/p>\n

The practice Saturday on the campus of Southern Methodist helped.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think making sure that everybody\u2019s in the right frame of mind, first of all, and then you know we worked on just offensive stuff, just cleaning up some stuff and being really explicit with what we want to run,\u201d Redick said. \u201cDid some offensive breakdown. It was definitely more of an offensive day. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe did work on defense to start the practice, but that\u2019s again that\u2019s the primary sort of focus. How do we score, how do we score efficiently, and our defense again is, it\u2019s we\u2019re interchangeable. We\u2019ve been interchangeable now for two-and-a half-months.\u201d<\/p>\n

James controversy<\/p>\n

James created a bit of controversy when he said on \u201cBob Does Sports\u201d YouTube video that Memphis should relocate to Nashville.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not like the first guy to even talk about it in the NBA. We all like, \u2018You guys have to move. Just go over to Nashville,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n

James, when asked if he wanted to clarify his remarks, then mentioned Milwaukee also as one of his least favorite cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said Milwaukee as well,\u201d James said. \u201cI\u2019m 41 years old (and) there\u2019s two cities I do not like playing in right now \u2014 and that\u2019s Milwaukee and that\u2019s Memphis. What is your problem with it? I don\u2019t like going home [to Cleveland,] either. \u2026 And I\u2019m from there. People are ridiculous. They also get mad at my son [Bronny James] being on the [Lakers] team, too. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, what are we talking about? People need to figure out other ways to put their energy to other things that\u2019s important. Like, seriously? I\u2019m not talking about the city, like the people in Memphis. I don\u2019t like staying at the Hyatt Centric [hotel]. What\u2019s wrong with that? Nothing. What are we talking about? What are we talking about? People need to chill the hell out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Lakers will be without their starting backcourt for the rest of the regular season \u2014 five more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[19538,35682,48,52,51,1415,479,47,50,49,7551,8336,2138,18158,107044,6664,7641,1414,2504,431,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-252206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-austin-reaves","9":"tag-james","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-headlines","12":"tag-la-news","13":"tag-lakers","14":"tag-little-bit","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","17":"tag-los-angeles-news","18":"tag-luka-doncic","19":"tag-memphis","20":"tag-more-game","21":"tag-no","22":"tag-oblique-strain","23":"tag-oklahoma-city","24":"tag-practice","25":"tag-redick","26":"tag-regular-season","27":"tag-rest","28":"tag-team"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}