Kevin Durant will play in Game 2 of the Rockets’ series against the Lakers on Tuesday night, ESPN’s Shams Charania reports.
Houston’s star forward missed Game 1 due to a knee tendon bruise after suffering the injury in practice last week. Rockets coach Ime Udoka said during his pregame press conference that Durant, who tested out the knee during pregame warmups, wouldn’t be on a minutes restriction if he plays.
“The pain tolerance is one thing, but actually moving and feeling comfortable doing all the movements is going to be the biggest thing,” Udoka said after the team’s practice this week.
The Lakers, who are operating without Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, collected a 107-98 Game 1 victory as the Rockets struggled offensively without Durant. The 16-time All-Star averaged 26.0 points per game this season in 78 outings this season and has averaged 29.3 PPG in 170 career playoff contests.
He’ll match up against LeBron James for the first time since the 2018 NBA Finals, when Durant played for Golden State and James led Cleveland.
Rockets gotta get this one.
How long is Luka and Reaves out for?? There is no way Lakers should win this series without them.
Came all this way to get smoked by Luke Kennard out of nowhere
I was the one saying that Rockets been playing poorly the last month. Now we will see if home court calls help them win. Lakers been the more agressive team.
Can’t believe 41 yr old Bron a d Kennard are beating Rockets lol. Don’t get it lol.
What’s up with Sheppard. Not playing
No PG is their problem.
Lakers getting all bs calls.
This series is over. If you can’t even beat the Lakers without Luka and AR, then you are a pretender. Lakers now have no reason to rush anyone back.
Rockets are the weakest playoff team in the west. The raptors are for the East. Rockets have no point guard at all. KD is good but can’t carry the team and honestly never have. The Lakers are still not better than Denver, OKC or San Antonio. But I never was high on Huston go back to my comments earlier in the year. Pretty much after the trading deadline and they didn’t trade for a point. Guard sealed their fate.
The team was not weak, only their head coach
Team is weak. This is playoff basketball. The game slows down and teams are scouting you. It why the other dude on the post was yapping about teams with good records being contenders and he didn’t know what he was talking about. Rockets have sanguine and a bunch of role players. No one to initiate the offense. Get the team in rhythm. Playmake or game manger.
KD is good but old now can’t done everything. Just as LeBron. He had a great game but will not keep that up for a full series. The NBA did them a favor game 1 3 days off then another 3 day between games. (Trying to get the team back) Once they get into the second round and the games are every other day you will see the drop off because of the age.
If you want to talk X’s and O’s the rockets got rolled by the warriors last year. All they added was KD. There backup big went down, the PG went down. And what has KD done outside of Curry since 2012? Nothing. The rockets sealed their fate. They didn’t trade for a point guard. I’m going to be 100% office Al’s been on here screaming that all year long and I said the same thing. People who know basketball truly know this series is a lot closer.
Last but not least, I’m picking LeBron over KD. Ayton is no scrub I’ve been saying this all year. He just gets out of rhythm being a fourth option. He was playing great with the blazers last year, They just wanted to tank And split his minutes with cligain and he wasn’t buying that in a contract year.
All in all the series is not over. It’s a lot closer than what people think without AR and Luka. Rockets could win the next two but it’s a 50/50 series. With Luka and AR it’s not close
900 year old Lebron leading Rui, Smart, Kennard, Hayes, LaRavia and Vanderbilt over the Rockets isn’t a thing that should be happening. Massive chokejob by Rockets.
Wonder when the rest of his team will be cleared to play
Playoffs show you just how trash some of these benches are. 7 dude combined for 0/17. 11 boards and 5 assists tho but it’s so clear as to why these coaches go to a 6 or 7 man rotation.
Its crazy how KC cursed the league when he nixed his trade back to GSW. Think about it:
-Curry maybe doesnt tear his hammy
-Even if he does, then KD gets his big chance to lead a team to the Finals, which would silence his “KD rode Curry” doubters
-KD’s revenge rolls OKC in WCF
-GSW definitely do better this year, if KD played like he did this year for them like he did for the Rockets, GSW easily survive losing Steph
-Jimmy goes to the Suns, who also make the playoffs
Instead we get…Podz, 37 wins, no top 8 playoff spot