{"id":720923,"date":"2026-04-29T06:15:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T06:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/720923\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T06:15:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T06:15:17","slug":"is-austin-reaves-playing-tonight-lakers-vs-rockets-2026-nba-playoffs-game-5-injury-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/720923\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Austin Reaves playing tonight? Lakers vs. Rockets 2026 NBA Playoffs Game 5 injury report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/los-angeles-lakers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> will attempt to close out the <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/houston-rockets\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Houston Rockets<\/a> during Game 5 of their first-round series on Wednesday. They could <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/los-angeles-lakers\/lakers-news-austin-reaves-trending-toward-game-5-injury-return-vs-rockets\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">welcome back star guard Austin Reaves during the matchup<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Reaves <a href=\"https:\/\/ak-static.cms.nba.com\/referee\/injury\/Injury-Report_2026-04-29_01_00AM.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">is questionable on Wednesday<\/a> after missing the first four games of the series due to a muscle strain in his left oblique.<\/p>\n<p>The Lakers listed Reaves as questionable for their Game 4 loss to the Rockets before ruling him out. However, there&#8217;s optimism that the 27-year-old could make his return during Game 5.<\/p>\n<p>Austin Reaves injury status vs. Rockets<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3779797\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Is-Austin-Reaves-returning-from-injury-for-Game-3-vs.jpg\" alt=\"Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic (77) and guard Austin Reaves (15) look on from the bench in the first half of game two of the first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs against the Houston Rockets at Crypto.com Arena.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\"  \/>Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/los-angeles-lakers\/lakers-rumors-austin-reaves-return-rockets-luka-doncic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN&#8217;s Shams Charania hinted that Reaves could be trending towards playing<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;m told there is optimism he&#8217;s going to be able to make it back into the lineup for Game 5. Barring any setbacks, he&#8217;s going to be a game-time decision,\u201d Charania said.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/los-angeles-lakers\/lakers-news-austin-reaves-break-silence-pending-game-5-injury-return\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Reaves said on Tuesday that he&#8217;s trending in the right direction<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJJ specifically was like, \u2018You have to be comfortable with your body and what you can do to go out there and help us be successful,\u2019\u201d Reaves told ClutchPoints&#8217; David Yapkowitz. \u201cI want to get out there as fast as I can \u2026 I feel good, trending in the right direction. I can\u2019t wait to wake up tomorrow and attack another day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reaves averaged 23.5 points, 4.7 rebounds and 5.5 assists on .490\/.360\/.871 shooting splits across 51 appearances this season. His return would provide a significant boost to a Lakers offense that is already without leading scorer Luka Doncic.<\/p>\n<p>If the Lakers can close out the Rockets in one of the next three games, they&#8217;ll move on to face the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round.<\/p>\n<p>The Los Angeles Lakers will attempt to close out the Houston Rockets during Game 5 of their first-round series on Wednesday.  They could welcome back star guard Austin Reaves during the matchup.  Reaves is questionable on Wednesday after missing the first four games of the series due to a muscle strain in his left oblique.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers will attempt to close out the Houston Rockets during Game 5 of their first-round&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[1013,7,194,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6,14502,11,2144],"class_list":["post-720923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-lakers","tag-austin-reaves","tag-basketball","tag-houston-rockets","tag-la","tag-la-lakers","tag-lakers","tag-lalakers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangeleslakers","tag-nba","tag-nba-injury","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-reporting"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116486532869103991","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720923","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=720923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}