{"id":289756,"date":"2026-04-28T14:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T14:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/289756\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T14:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T14:10:10","slug":"sources-lakers-optimistic-for-austin-reaves-return-in-game-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/289756\/","title":{"rendered":"Sources: Lakers optimistic for Austin Reaves&#8217; return in Game 5"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \"><a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/lal\/los-angeles-lakers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> star <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4066457\/austin-reaves\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Austin Reaves<\/a> is optimistic to return to action for Game 5 against the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/hou\/houston-rockets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Houston Rockets<\/a> on Wednesday night after missing about four weeks with a Grade 2 oblique strain, sources told ESPN on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Reaves will be a game-time decision for the third consecutive contest, but there&#8217;s significant hope around his status, barring a setback. He has progressed in his rehab over the last one to two weeks, from one-on-one workouts to larger group scrimmages, sources said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">He hasn&#8217;t played since suffering the injury on April 2, missing the final five games of the regular season and the first four playoff games against the Rockets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Reaves averaged 23.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 5.5 assists this season while shooting 49% from the field and 36% from 3-point range.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Lakers, who lead the Rockets 3-1, will host Game 5 on Wednesday (10 p.m. ET, ESPN) with a chance to advance to the second round with a win.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Los Angeles continues to be without star <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/3945274\/luka-doncic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Luka Doncic<\/a> as he recovers from a hamstring injury that he also suffered on April 2.br\/]<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Lakers star Austin Reaves is optimistic to return to action for Game 5 against the Houston&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[123849,750,7006,48,52,51,47,50,2497,49,129,100,22134],"class_list":["post-289756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-123849","tag-espn","tag-houston-rockets","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-reaves-austin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289756","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=289756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}