Thursday night’s game on the road against the Boston Celtics was very tough for the Los Angeles Lakers because LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Cam Reddish, and Gabe Vincent were all out. Even worse, Jarred Vanderbilt hurt himself at the end of the second quarter and couldn’t play for the rest of the game because his right foot hurt.

The accident happened at a very bad time for Vanderbilt because they have been playing well lately. He went out at James’ pace against the Celtics and had 10 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, and 3 steals in 16 minutes before he got hurt.

With a heel injury, Vanderbilt missed the first couple of months of the regular season. Even after coming back, he was honest about not being fully fit.

We don’t know how bad Vanderbilt’s foot injury is yet, but we hope it’s not too bad and that he won’t have to miss a lot of time. He hurt his heel on his left foot, so this is a new issue. He will probably have to go through more tests to find out how bad the injury is.

Vanderbilt’s place was taken by Rui Hachimura to start the third quarter. If he loses time in the future, he will probably continue to play more minutes. Given how badly the Lakers have been playing defense lately, not having Vanderbilt as their best wing defender would be a big loss.

The Lakers have two more games on the road before they get back home. Without some key players, it will be hard for them to move forward.