Luka Doncic suffered a left leg contusion during the Los Angeles Lakers’ 103-88 loss to the LA Clippers on Saturday and did not return after halftime. The injury occurred during the first half at Intuit Dome. Doncic scored 12 points on 4-of-13 shooting with five rebounds, two assists and four turnovers before leaving.
JJ Redick confirmed that Doncic could not continue after the break. At halftime the team trailed 54-39.
“I saw him limping toward the end of the first half. He came up to me at halftime and said he couldn’t play,” Redick said after the game.
A source told ESPN that the injury resulted from a collision with Clippers guard Bogdan Bogdanovic. Doncic left the arena without speaking to reporters.
“I don’t have any other information,” Redick said.
Doncic previously missed three games in October due to a left leg contusion. Saturday’s injury does not appear to be related to that incident.
Los Angeles played without three other starters as Austin Reaves, Deandre Ayton and Rui Hachimura were sidelined with injuries. Dalton Knecht replaced Doncic in the starting lineup for the second half.
LeBron James scored a season-high 36 points on 15-of-28 shooting. The rest of the Lakers shot 19-for-60 from the field and 3-for-31 from three-point range.
“No matter the circumstances, it’s still the next man up,” James said afterward. “We’re all professionals. We all have to stay ready. So obviously it’s very challenging conditions for our ball club tonight, but I think we played extremely hard, we followed our rules. We just came up short.”
The Lakers shot 6-of-38 from three-point range as a team and missed seven free throws. James helped cut a 22-point third-quarter deficit to seven points early in the fourth quarter.
“We just didn’t shoot tonight,” Jake LaRavia said. “I mean, it really was. We went 6-for-38 from 3 [as a team]we missed seven free throws. Hard to win basketball games like that. I thought we played very, very hard. But yeah, there just weren’t any shots fired.”
Redick did not rule out Reaves and Ayton returning for Tuesday’s game against the Phoenix Suns. He said Hachimura could miss three to five days due to his groin injury.
The loss dropped Los Angeles to 19-8, fourth in the Western Conference. The Lakers visit Phoenix on Tuesday before hosting Houston on Christmas Day.
“The worst thing about sports is injuries,” James said. “And not just basketball, but sports in general. You control the controls, but what we have there, whoever is in uniform, we have to go out there and execute at the fastest pace possible and on the other end we have to defend on a string and help each other.”
Doncic leads the NBA in scoring with 35.2 points per game while averaging 9.1 assists and 8.8 rebounds.
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