LeBron James was downgraded to out with a right hip contusion and left foot arthritis for the Lakers’ game against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
James missed his third straight game with his injury. He missed the first two, against the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks, with a left elbow contusion and left foot arthritis.
James was injured in the fourth quarter of the Lakers’ game last Thursday night. James had scored over Denver Nikola Jokic, but was clipped by the Nuggets’ center and fell hard onto the court, holding his left elbow.
“He did his on-court shooting before our film and walk-through and probably just needs a couple more days,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “So, it’s still day to day. Sometimes day to day means two days, sometimes it can mean five or six days. But he’s day to day.”
Redick was asked if James taking some games off for body maintenance during his NBA-record 23rd season was a good thing for the long haul and for a long playoff run.
“Yeah, we obviously want him in the lineup,” Redick said. “When we were kind of approaching this stretch and you see the six days [of games] in eight nights — we had two back-to-backs last week — you never know how his body is going to respond to a game and how his foot is going to respond. So, it’s not to say I expected him to miss a game. It’s just it wouldn’t have surprised me if he needed a day or two to get his body right. The fact that he had the falls in Denver … He’s trying to ramp up. He wants to be out there and so do we and hopefully he’s back soon.”
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