LOS ANGELES \u2014 Houston Rockets star Kevin Durant was a partial participant in his team\u2019s practice on Monday, and Rockets coach Ime Udoka said Durant is considered a game-time decision for Tuesday\u2019s Game 2 of their first-round series against the Los Angeles Lakers.<\/p>\n
When media members were allowed into Rockets practice on Monday, Durant appeared to have tape and a bandage on the right knee that forced him to miss Houston\u2019s 107-98 loss to the Lakers in Game 1.<\/p>\n
Durant appeared to be in good spirits as he put up shots with his teammates after practice, and he moved around the court fairly well as he went through drills. On Saturday, Durant was clearly limited as he tried to go through his pregame warm-up, which played a major role in his sitting out.<\/p>\n
Although a final decision on Durant\u2019s status won\u2019t be made until Tuesday, there appears to be some optimism that the Rockets\u2019 leading scorer will be back for Game 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe went through about half of the (practice),\u201d Udoka said Monday. \u201cI would say mobility probably (is most important). The pain tolerance is one thing, but actually moving and feeling comfortable doing all the movements is going to be the biggest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 37-year-old Durant was a surprising late scratch before Game 1 on Saturday after he bumped knees with a teammate at a practice in Houston on Wednesday. Udoka said Durant was hit in the area right above his knee.<\/p>\n
Without Durant, the Rockets\u2019 offensive execution cratered against a Lakers team that was also short-handed, with Luka Don\u010di\u0107 (hamstring) and Austin Reaves (oblique) both sidelined indefinitely. The Rockets were held to 98 points and shot 37.6 percent from the field Saturday. They finished with 27 more field goal attempts than Los Angeles, largely due to offensive rebounds and turnovers, yet still failed to put any scare into the Lakers in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
The hope for the Rockets is that getting Durant back on the court will solve a lot of their offensive issues from Game 1 and give them a great opportunity to even the series at 1-1 before heading back to Houston for the next two games.<\/p>\n
\u201c(We need to) play with more pace. Not be as stagnant against their switching,\u201d Udoka said. \u201cWe did a lot of things well. We won a lot of areas. But our efficiency and, I think, our shot creation and our shot quality can be a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Durant\u2019s first season in Houston, he averaged 26.0 points, 5.5 rebounds and 4.8 assists. He appeared in 78 regular-season games, his most since 2018-19.<\/p>\n
Much of the conversation heading into this series was about another potential postseason matchup between Durant and Lakers star LeBron James. Houston is hoping those two will finally get to go toe-to-toe in Game 2.<\/p>\n
As for the Lakers, they didn\u2019t seem concerned about the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought our week of preparation just put us in a good spot going to Game 1 regardless of who was in the lineup for them,\u201d Lakers coach JJ Redick said.<\/p>\n
Added Lakers big man Jaxson Hayes: \u201cIt\u2019s whatever happens happens. It\u2019s the NBA, so you never know what to expect with guys and injuries. It\u2019s a long season, so guys get hurt. You just gotta prepare either way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 Dan Woike contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Houston Rockets star Kevin Durant was a partial participant in his team\u2019s practice on Monday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[5050,1055,355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-596293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-houston-rockets","9":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}