LeBron James suffered a right foot injury late in the third quarter during the clash against Dallas Mavericks on Sunday night. James said the medical team will monitor the injury for the next couple of days and see it from there.
The Lakers defeated Dallas Mavericks by 111-108 to register their third consecutive win. James said he knew the importance of this match and there was no way he was going to leave the court despite his injury.
“It’s been better,” James said when asked about his foot afterward. “That’s for sure. But I definitely wasn’t going to go to the locker room and not finish the game out tonight. Just understood the importance of the game, and then with the momentum that we had, I felt like we could still win after being down.
“We’ll monitor it the next couple days, see how it feels and go from there.”
In fact, the Lakers were trailing by 27 in the first half but they were able to bounce back strongly into the contest. Anthony Davis led the charge as he scored 27 points for the Lakers.
Meanwhile, Lakers head coach Darvin Ham admitted he wasn’t aware of LeBron James’ injury and his message to the bench – after playing him for 10 minutes in the fourth quarter.
“I didn’t hear that,” Ham said after the game. “I didn’t hear him say that at all.” “He’s good,” Ham said of James. “Our medical people are looking at him now. He’ll be reevaluated again in the morning. So once we get some type of official word tomorrow, we’ll go from there. But as of right now, he’s good.”
James went on to score 26 points on 10-for-23 shooting, also contributing eight rebounds and three assists in the 37 minutes he played. Out of the 26 points, James scored 11 points in the final quarter despite the injury. Austin Reaves was all praise on the veteran.
“When you’re that good, you can — I’m not going to say, ‘Play with the game,’ but he’s obviously really athletic, and if it hindered him a little bit rolling his ankle, he’s got that to go to,” Lakers wing Austin Reaves said. “So it speaks to his skill set.”
The Lakers next face Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday night.
