The Los Angeles Lakers schedule is set to present a challenge to the team amid a stretch of injuries.
LeBron James suffered an injury during the LA Lakers loss to the Boston Celtics, which is set to cause him to spend a spell on the sidelines.
It comes at a time when Dorian Finney-Smith has also been ruled out of their game at the Nets, along with Ruis Hachimura, with Jaxson Hayes and Luka Doncic listed as questionable.
The current number two seed in the Western Conference face a battle to remain in their position over the next fortnight, amid an aggressive schedule.
A re-arranged game against the San Antonio Spurs that was cancelled due to the LA fires, has been added to an already complicated schedule.
NBA insider Brian Windhorst pointed out to ESPN’s First Take that this means the Lakers will now play four games in five nights – a schedule outlawed by NBA commissioner Adam Silver.
He explained: “They play this stretch, where they play six games in 10 days. It’s actually not something that normally happens in the NBA schedule.
“They have a week next week, all here in LA, but they play five games in seven days, four in five nights.
“Those were banned by Commissioner Adam Silver, but the reason they got to do it is because they have a rescheduled game from the fires.”
- Thursday 13 March: Bucks vs Lakers
- Friday 14 March: Nuggets vs Lakers
- Sunday 16 March: Lakers vs Suns
- Monday 17 March: Lakers vs Spurs
- Wednesday 19 March: Nuggets vs Lakers
- Thursday 20 March: Lakers vs Bucks
Windhorst pointed out that amid the Lakers injuries, they were likely going to have to rest players anyway, and drop games.
He said: “I don’t think that even if they were fully healthy, LeBron and Luka were playing all those games. There’s going to be a couple of games in there where they were just going to have to maybe shut some guys down and rest them, because they just can’t play them that many minutes.
“Luka’s still coming off of this calf injury. So what I’m saying to you is the Lakers were going to take some losses anyway.”
But he also noted that third placed Denver Nuggets and fourth placed Memphis Grizzlies are also dealing with fresh injury problems of their own.
He said: “The other thing is, pay attention. What’s going on behind them? Yesterday, Denver loses Aaron Gordon into a calf injury. It’s a third time he’s had this calf injury this year.
“The Grizzlies are dealing without Jaren Jackson Jr for a couple of weeks with an ankle injury.”
