Camila Sosa
Things are still not going well for the Los Angeles Lakers and LeBron James, as the team’s star finished Sunday’s crucial game against the New Orleans Pelicans with a severe sprained left ankle that keeps all sides worried.
James told Ryan Ward, LakersNation.com, the discomfort was causing him quite a bit of pain and he confessed, “My ankle is horrible right now.”
James suffered the sprain during the second period of the game as he prepared to jump for a possible rebound and stepped on the left foot of Pelicans center Jaxon Hayes.
The Lakers forward, who played 42 minutes and scored 39 points, with nine rebounds and five assists, added, according to Ward, that he didn’t know how the ankle engagement had ended that way and that the feeling was quite unpleasant. In fact, in the replay it could be seen how James tied tightly the braids of his shoes so that the inflammation was delayed and could continue to play.
“It’s hard. It’s just been that kind of complicated season. He was in an incredible rhythm at the time and I give him every credit for enduring that pain. But, you can see that he was limited after the injury, even though I try to battle it,” Los Angeles coach Frank Vogel said.
LeBron James continued to respond in the second quarter by hitting five of six from the field and four of five from long range, which declined in the second half where he scored 14 points and the Lakers were outscored by 24 points in the 21 minutes he was in the game.
LeBron James Uncertainty
The Lakers’ aspirations to at least qualify tenth in the Western Conference and play in the Play-in Tournament continue to go astray, after LeBron James’ injury came right in a compromise in which they lost a 23-point lead to New Orleans and were in tenth place with only one game of advantage against the San Antonio Spurs.
With eight games still to come, no one knows if James will be available for Tuesday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks, though the same player is confident he won’t miss any of the remaining matchups.
“I really hope not because I hate losing commitments. It’s not in my nature,” James told the media present after the game at the Smoothie King Center.
James has missed a good number of crashes during this campaign due to various injuries and this time the outlook is uncertain, especially because of the pressure that his ankle was going to suffer on the flight that the Lakers had to take that same night from New Orleans to Dallas.
“Unfortunately we are about to take a flight. There we’ll see what happens day by day, but at the moment it hurts me a lot,” said the 37-year-old, who concluded his interview by pointing out that if the team had not been in the position it is currently in, he would not have continued playing the commitment.
