The Los Angeles Lakers released their injury report for Saturday’s road game against the Denver Nuggets and Luka Doncic (left calf injury management) and LeBron James (left foot injury management) are listed as probable, signaling they both will likely be able to play.
Considering Doncic recently returned from a long-term injury, the Lakers were cautious and sat him out in the second night of a back-to-back on Thursday against the Portland Trail Blazers. The Lakers have a handful of back-to-backs moving forward though and the current expectation is for Doncic to be able to play in them.
James has been managing his foot issue for a while and expects that to be the case for the rest of the season, although with a big matchup against the Nuggets set for Saturday night, he will surely do everything in his power to help his team get a win.
Elsewhere on the Lakers’ injury report, Jarred Vanderbilt is not on it and will be available, while Maxi Kleber (right foot surgery recovery) remains out.
Denver will be a tough test for the Lakers as Nikola Jokic and Co. have been playing at an extremely high level in recent weeks, winning nine straight games.
Of course, the Lakers have had their fair share of struggles against the Nuggets in the past, so it will be interesting to see how this new-look version of them with Doncic fares against them on Saturday.
On the Denver side of things, they will only be without Peyton Watson as the rest of their rotation is currently healthy.
Luka Doncic expected to be able to play in back-to-backs moving forward
The Lakers have seven more back-to-backs this season and given how close the standings are in the Western Conference, they will need to be as close to full strength as possible for all of these games down the stretch.
The good news is that even though Luka Doncic sat out against the Trail Blazers, he is expected to be able to play in back-to-backs moving forward.
“Speaking with him Tuesday night after practice, we sat down together. He’s all in,” head coach JJ Redick said of Doncic. “He’s [over] the mental part of the shock and everything, he’s in a really good place. And now we’ve got to get him physically where he needs to be to be Luka.”
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