{"id":612800,"date":"2026-04-29T06:59:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T06:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/612800\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T06:59:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T06:59:16","slug":"rockets-rule-out-kevin-durant-ankle-for-game-5-vs-lakers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/612800\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets rule out Kevin Durant (ankle) for Game 5 vs. Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">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><a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/ak-static.cms.nba.com\/referee\/injury\/Injury-Report_2026-04-28_09_00PM.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">officially ruled out<\/a> star forward <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/3202\/kevin-durant\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kevin Durant<\/a> for Wednesday night&#8217;s must-win 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\/lal\/los-angeles-lakers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> because of a left ankle sprain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Durant <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48619162\/rockets-udoka-durant-status-g5-vs-lakers-see\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">didn&#8217;t participate in practice<\/a> with the Rockets on Tuesday before they left for Los Angeles, trailing 3-1 in the Western Conference first-round series. But he was seen running on an antigravity treadmill as the team wrapped up its work before heading to the airport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Durant sat out the opener with a bruised right knee, as well as Games 3, 4 and 5. He returned for Game 2, scoring 23 points in 41 minutes of the 101-94 loss, during which he injured his ankle late in the game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48606624\/houston-rockets-stave-elimination-top-los-angeles-lakers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Rockets won Game 4<\/a> 115-96 to avoid elimination, despite missing their superstar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Durant&#8217;s injury problems this postseason came after the 37-year-old ranked second in the league in the regular season by playing 2,840 minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Durant, who is in his first season in Houston after an offseason trade from<a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/phx\/phoenix-suns\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Phoenix<\/a>, is the fifth-leading scorer in NBA history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">The Associated Press contributed to this report.br\/]<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Rocketsofficially ruled out star forward Kevin Durant for Wednesday night&#8217;s must-win Game 5 against the Los&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[266063,67920,352,5050,1055,355,3,99],"class_list":["post-612800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-266063","tag-durant-kevin","tag-espn","tag-houston-rockets","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612800","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=612800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}