There was an injury report for the Los Angeles Lakers game against the Phoenix Suns on Thursday night. Forward Rui Hachimura (left calf strain) is questionable again, and Cam Reddish (facial laceration) is out.
Anthony Davis (left ankle sprain/bone bruise) is also likely to play, but LeBron James (left ankle peroneal tendinopathy) is not. With their injuries, both Lakers stars have been on the status list for a while, but they haven’t missed any games.
Also, Reddish got cut on the face when Immanuel Quickley elbowed him in the face during Tuesday night’s win over the Toronto Raptors. Reddish went back to the locker room after making the missed free throws and did not come back into the game.
Reddish has played in 31 games this season and started 24 of them. He has averaged 6.9 points, 2.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists, and 1.3 steals per game while hitting 34.5% from 3-point range.
After hurting his calf in the Dec. 31 game against the New Orleans Pelicans, Hachimura is sure to miss his fifth straight game. It was found that he had a Grade 1 calf strain and that he would be fine in a few days.
Darvin Ham gave us more information about Hachimura on Tuesday. He was hopeful that he would be back soon, but it’s not likely that he will be back on Thursday.
“Perhaps we’ll see,” Ham said. “It will be day by day. Tonight we’ll see how he feels, and in the morning we’ll start the process and see where it goes.”
Just like Reddish, Hachimura has had a lot of small injuries this season. Besides the problem with his leg, he has also had a broken nose and a broken head. So far, he has played in 25 of the Lakers’ 38 games and has averaged 11.6 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 1.1 assists while hitting 48.5% from the field and 36.8% from three-point range.
LeBron James says nice things about Cam Reddish’s play in the Lakers’ win over the Raptors.
Before getting hit in the face with an elbow, Reddish was having one of his best games of the season against Toronto. He scored 13 points and made 4 of 6 shots from deep.
James talked about why Reddish was able to help so much on offense after the game.
James said, “I think he was always ready to attack.” “He was very shot-aggressive, but I think he made one mistake where he kind of bubbled a ball…. He’s sometimes in a middle ground where teams are trying to force him to shoot and times when they want to force him to shoot. I thought he was pretty much ready to let go of the ball tonight. He’s always great at defense, that much is clear.