The Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics both entered Saturday’s highly anticipated matchup in second place in their respective conferences.
The Lakers have surged in the weeks since the team acquired Luka Doncic. But Boston outlasted Los Angeles on Saturday and ultimately celebrated a 111-101 victory. An injury forced LeBron James to exit the game in the fourth quarter.
While James did not provide a timetable for his return to the court, he did attempt to ease concerns about the severity of the injury.
“Not much concern,” James said. “Obviously, I’m day-to-day. I’ll look at it each day and see if it gets better, and take the proper measures to see what I need to do moving forward.”
ESPN reported that a strained groin could sideline James for up to two weeks.
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James did not return to the court after a timeout with 6:44 minutes remaining after he contested a layup by Jaylen Brown. The 21-time NBA All-Star was seen walking gingerly to the huddle and then barely moved before making his way to the locker room with trainers.
James finished the game with 22 points, 14 rebounds and nine assists.
He said his initial thoughts went to his first season in Los Angeles in 2018, when he suffered a groin injury during a Christmas Day game against the Golden State Warriors. He missed the next 17 games and the injury bothered him for most of the remainder of the season.
“I’ve been there before and I know what type of injury we’re dealing with,” James noted. He appears to be confident that his latest injury is not as serious as the 2018 one.
He also said he thought about former teammate Anthony Davis, who incurred his current groin injury in his first game with the Dallas Mavericks following his trade for Doncic.
“That’s crazy. But I thought about AD,” James said.
Doncic just wants James to give the injury the rest it needs. “Obviously, he’s got to take his time,” Doncic said. “Those injuries, I won’t say are the worse, but they’re tough to deal with.”
The Lakers’ loss to the Celtics ended Los Angeles’ eight-game win streak. The defeat also briefly dropped them to third place in the Western Conference standings. But, L.A. moved back into second place after the Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the Denver Nuggets on Sunday afternoon.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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