{"id":698937,"date":"2026-04-05T02:52:47","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/698937\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T02:52:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:52:47","slug":"lakers-austin-reaves-oblique-out-for-remainder-of-regular-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/698937\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers\u2019 Austin Reaves (oblique) out for remainder of regular season"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/p>\n

An image collage containing 2 images, Image 1 shows Austin Reaves of the Los Angeles Lakers handles the ball against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Image 2 shows Austin Reaves of the Los Angeles Lakers drives to the basket<\/p>\n

DALLAS \u2014 Lakers star guard Austin Reaves will be sidelined for the remainder of the regular season because of an oblique injury, the team said on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Reaves was diagnosed with a Grade 2 left oblique muscle injury after having an MRI over the weekend.<\/p>\n

He suffered the injury during Thursday\u2019s blowout loss to the Thunder after he \u201coverextended a little bit\u201d for a rebound in the first quarter, Reaves said postgame.<\/p>\n

\"Austin<\/p>\n

Austin Reaves of the Los Angeles Lakers drives to the basket during the game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on April 2, 2026 at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (Photo by Adam Pantozzi\/NBAE via Getty Images) NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Reaves stayed in the game despite the discomfort, going back to the locker room after subbing out before returning in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

He subbed out for the remainder of the game in the third, with the Lakers down by 38 at the time.<\/p>\n

Reaves is expected to be sidelined for 4-6 weeks, joining fellow star guard Luka Doncic as Lakers who are out for the rest of the regular season after Doncic suffered a regular-season-ending Grade 2 left hamstring strain against the Thunder.<\/p>\n

With Doncic (33.5 points) and Reaves (23.3) sidelined, the Lakers will be without their top-two scorers for the remainder of the regular season and the start of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Doncic\u2019s injury is expected to sideline him for a few weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a strategic tactical standpoint, we obviously are gonna have to play a little bit differently,\u201d coach JJ Redick said after Saturday\u2019s practice before Reaves\u2019 injury was revealed. \u201cThere\u2019s enough that we have in that we can play through LeBron [James], play through Luke [Kennard], play through Rui [Hachimura], play through [Deandre Ayton].\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lakers entered Sunday with a 50-27 record for third place in the Western Conference standings, a \u00bd game ahead of the fourth-place Nuggets (50-28), two games ahead of the fifth-place Rockets (48-29) and four games ahead of the sixth-place Timberwolves (46-31).<\/p>\n

\u201cOur mission hasn\u2019t changed,\u201d Redick said. \u201cWe want to go get the 3-seed and we want to win a first round series.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to his career-high scoring average, Reaves will finish the season with averages of 5.5 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 1.1 steals in a career-low 51 games after missing significant time in December and January because of a calf strain.<\/p>\n

He has a $14.9 million player option for 2026-27 that he\u2019s expected to decline, making him an unrestricted free agent this offseason.<\/p>\n

LeBron James, who\u2019s 41 and in his 23rd NBA season, is the Lakers\u2019 lone star player available for the stretch run of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got to flip the mindset a little bit,\u201d James said. \u201cWhen your role changes, whatever the case may be, or what\u2019s needed out of the team. So the mindset changes a little bit for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marcus Smart will also remain sidelined because of a right ankle contusion. He\u2019ll miss his seventh consecutive game because of the injury when the Lakers play the Mavericks on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ball handling role, we\u2019ll obviously have to ask guys to do more,\u201d Redick said. \u201cKobe [Bufkin], Nick [Smith Jr.], Dalton [Knecht], those guys will be with us at some point for [on Sunday]. We\u2019ll probably have to play a 10- and 11-man rotation, all hands on deck.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a delay getting the results from Reaves\u2019 MRI.<\/p>\n

Saturday was Reaves\u2019 second time getting imaging for his injury in Dallas after the first one didn\u2019t scan the right area.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, I don\u2019t know where the chain of command lies with Dallas imaging, but they scanned the wrong area,\u201d coach JJ Redick said. \u201cNot on our end. We made it explicit what was supposed to be scanned but they scanned the wrong area.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An image collage containing 2 images, Image 1 shows Austin Reaves of the Los Angeles Lakers handles the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[1013,7,29699,1586,1661,1168,5955,2772,4034,1698,300,4044,516,251,150,4033,4043,368,326,6,9932,179,2742,308],"class_list":{"0":"post-698937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-austin-reaves","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-bufkin","11":"tag-deandre-ayton","12":"tag-jj-redick","13":"tag-kennard","14":"tag-knecht","15":"tag-kobe","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-la-lakers","18":"tag-lakers","19":"tag-lalakers","20":"tag-lebron","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","23":"tag-losangeles","24":"tag-losangeleslakers","25":"tag-luka-doncic","26":"tag-marcus-smart","27":"tag-nba","28":"tag-oblique-injury","29":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","30":"tag-regular-season","31":"tag-timberwolves"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116349843169839323","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698937","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=698937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}