{"id":265551,"date":"2026-04-25T06:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T06:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/265551\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T06:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T06:32:09","slug":"status-up-in-the-air-for-game-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/265551\/","title":{"rendered":"Status ‘up in the air’ for Game 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Houston Rockets are down 3-0 in their playoff series with the Los Angeles Lakers, and they\u2019ve only had their superstar Kevin\u00a0Durant for one of those games<\/a>. So, will he be around to try to stave off a sweep?<\/p>\n

\u201cUp in the air,\u201d Rockets coach Ime Udoka deemed Durant\u2019s status after the Rockets suffered a devastating 112-108 overtime loss<\/a> in Friday night\u2019s Game 3 after blowing a\u00a0six-point lead in the final 30 seconds of regulation.<\/p>\n

Durant missed Game 1 with a bruised knee, then returned for Game 2, scoring 23 points in 41 minutes of the Rockets’ 101-94 defeat Tuesday<\/a>. Late in that game, Durant turned his ankle while trying to chase down Luke Kennard on a fast break. He remained in the game, playing through it, but his ankle swelled up on him, according to Udoka.<\/p>\n

He was a game-time decision when he arrived at Toyota Center on Friday, but eventually was ruled out. Udoka said Durant didn\u2019t sit with the team on the bench during Game 3 because he was receiving treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he made some progress in the last few days, but we\u2019ll see what happens with only one day in between (games),\u201d Udoka said after Friday\u2019s loss.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old Durant was incredibly durable this season, playing the second-most minutes in the NBA during the regular season, averaging 26 points per game.<\/p>\n

Now, the Rockets will try to become the first NBA team to ever overcome a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-7 playoff series. Of the previous 159 teams in this situation, only four have been able to reach a Game 7.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever\u2019s on the court, we\u2019re going to play with them, but of course, not having our big scorer on the court is hard,\u201d Alperen Sengun said after scoring 33 points with 16 rebounds in Friday\u2019s loss<\/a>. \u201cWe can not think about that. Hopefully, we have him back Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Rockets are down 3-0 in their playoff series with the Los Angeles Lakers, and they\u2019ve only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-265551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}