Houston Rockets head coach Ime Udoka said Kevin Durant will miss Game 1 of their first-round series against the Los Angeles Lakers due to a knee injury. Durant led the Rockets with 26.0 points per game in 78 regular-season appearances. Josh Okogie will start Game 1 in Durant’s place.
Kevin Durant is OUT for tonight’s Game 1 vs LA Lakers, per Ime Udoka.
Huge news.
— Will Guillory (@WillGuillory) April 18, 2026
Udoka said Saturday that Durant suffered the injury during a practice Wednesday when he bumped knees with a teammate. Durant had the knee looked at by team physicians, and it was determined the injury won’t keep him out long term.
“It’s soreness. It’s very tender,” Udoka said before Game 1. “It’s tough to bend in certain ways. Not a lot of swelling. He hit it in a very awkward spot, I guess, more than anything. It could’ve been a regular bumped knee, and he would’ve played through that. But it was right above the knee, the patellar tendon area.”
Udoka said the team is uncertain about Durant’s status going into Tuesday’s Game 2, but the hope is that he will be back. “Pain tolerance is one thing, but actually limited movement is more the cause,” he said.
With Durant out of the lineup, the Rockets will start Okogie, Reed Sheppard, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr. and Alperen Şengün in Game 1. This will be just the second time Durant has missed a game due to injury this season.
The 37-year-old missed two games in late November due to personal reasons, and he sat out the regular-season finale for rest.
Durant’s absence puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the Lakers to pull out Game 1 of the series at home, as they come into the playoffs with some major injuries of their own.
Lakers stars Luka Dončić (hamstring) and Austin Reaves (oblique) are out indefinitely after suffering relatively serious injuries just a few weeks before the playoffs.
Los Angeles is hopeful that Dončić or Reaves, if not both, will be back before the end of the first round, but it’s still unclear how advanced either is in their respective recoveries.
For Houston, the pressure goes up for Şengün and Thompson to be the driving force of the offense. Şengün, in particular, will play a pivotal role as the primary hub on offense in half-court situations and as the go-to guy if Houston has clutch possessions late in the game.