{"id":644324,"date":"2026-03-07T01:14:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T01:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/644324\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T01:14:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T01:14:27","slug":"lakers-lebron-james-deandre-ayton-to-miss-game-vs-pacers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/644324\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers’ LeBron James, Deandre Ayton to miss game vs. Pacers"},"content":{"rendered":"

ByDave McMenamin \"ESPN<\/p>\n

Friday, March 6, 2026 10:06PM<\/p>\n

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> will be without LeBron James<\/a> and two of their big men in Deandre Ayton<\/a> and Maxi Kleber<\/a> on Friday against the Indiana Pacers<\/a>, the team announced.<\/p>\n

James did not finish L.A.’s 120-113 loss<\/a> to the Denver Nuggets<\/a> on Thursday after sustaining a left elbow contusion late in the fourth quarter when absorbing contact from Nikola Jokic<\/a> and tumbling to the floor. James is also listed with left foot arthritis on the injury report.<\/p>\n

Ayton is out with left knee soreness. He played the first four and a half minutes Thursday before exiting the game because of his left knee and did not return.<\/p>\n

Kleber will miss his third straight game with a lumbar back strain, the team announced.<\/p>\n

Without Kleber and Ayton for most of Thursday, Lakers backup center Jaxson Hayes<\/a> shined with 19 points on 8-for-10 shooting and five rebounds against the Nuggets.<\/p>\n

Indiana (15-47) has the worst record in the Eastern Conference and has lost seven straight games coming into Friday.br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ByDave McMenamin Friday, March 6, 2026 10:06PM LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Lakers will be without LeBron…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[83661,28286,7,130,2799,150,6,67],"class_list":["post-644324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-83661","tag-ayton-deandre","tag-basketball","tag-espn","tag-james-lebron","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba","tag-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116185247508789337","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}