Written By Nick Crain | Published at April 4, 2026 
Mar 14, 2026; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic (77) reacts with guard Austin Reaves (15) after scoring a game winning shot during overtime against the Denver Nuggets at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: William Liang-Imagn Images
After getting devastating news regarding Luka Dončić and his hamstring, which will keep him out at least for the rest of the NBA‘s regular season, the Los Angeles Lakers got even more bad news on Saturday.
Austin Reaves is now dealing with an oblique strain that is expected to keep him out four to six weeks. The Lakers were fairly direct about Reaves’ outlook, and that timeline almost certainly means he will miss the remainder of the regular season and likely the first round of the playoffs as well. In Dončić’s case, the exact return window is a little less concrete, but a Grade 2 hamstring strain is serious enough that it is easy to understand why the Lakers are preparing for the possibility that he will not be back anytime soon.
That leaves Los Angeles staring at a brutal reality just days before the postseason. There is now a very real chance the Lakers could open the playoffs without their top two scorers and without two of the players who have driven so much of their recent offensive success. That is a nightmare scenario for any contender, especially one that had spent the last several weeks looking like one of the most dangerous teams in the Western Conference.
Before these injuries, the Lakers had built serious momentum and looked like a team peaking at the right time. They had surged up the standings, played some of their best basketball of the season, and put themselves in position to not only secure the No. 3 seed but to potentially make a deep playoff run.
Now, all of that optimism has been replaced by uncertainty. Even holding onto that seed feels far less secure, and the entire outlook of the Lakers’ season has changed in a matter of days. What felt like a team rounding into form now looks like one that may simply be trying to survive long enough to get healthy again.