Austin Reaves shot free throws with his teammates after Lakers practice on Tuesday. Luka Doncic was going to rejoin the team Friday after going to Madrid for injections on his strained hamstring.
Hope was all around them, taunting them like rays of sunshine through an opaque window.
But it was nothing but a mirage.
“They’re out indefinitely,” Lakers coach JJ Redick told reporters Tuesday. “I’m not going to have an update for you this week. They’re out indefinitely.”
Redick popped the bubble that there could be a miracle looming.
The treatment Doncic received in Spain could still expedite his return, but it wasn’t a magic salve that somehow will make him ready for Game 1 of Lakers’ first-round playoff series against the Rockets on Saturday.
And even though Reaves is tough as nails and played through a left big toe sprain last postseason, his oblique injury remains too painful to push through.
Both injuries typically sideline players four to six weeks. For the Lakers, it was hard not to hope they’d catch a break.
With the shocking suddenness that 60 points were wiped off their roster, it seemed only fair that the universe would even things out with a sliver of good news.
But no such luck.
The Lakers are going into battle without their two biggest stars. We don’t know if either of them will return this postseason. We might not see them on the court again until October.
The 41-year old LeBron James has to singlehandedly attempt to shoulder the load of The Big Three. Luke Kennard has to assume a new role in the playoffs, going from a 3-point specialist to a playmaker. All of the team’s role players need to try and shatter their glass ceilings.
It’s a tough break for the Lakers, who were considered championship contenders less than two weeks ago.
But it’s time to really accept reality: No one is coming to save them.
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Unless the Lakers somehow eke past the first round of the playoffs and Doncic and Reaves are able to return, there will be so many “what ifs” surrounding this team.
What if Redick had taken Doncic out when he initially grabbed at his hamstring in the Lakers’ 43-point loss to the Thunder on April 2? What if similarly he had yanked Reaves when he saw him grabbing at his side during that same game? What if the Lakers’ medical staff had advised Redick differently, telling him not to play them?
If the Lakers were fully healthy, how far could they have gone in the playoffs?
Will we ever see James, Doncic and Reaves as teammates again?
It’s a tough turn of events for a team that was soaring, going 16-2 before the injury bug feasted on their stars in the same game, attacking them as though they had entered the wrong part of the woods.
But there’s no time for the Lakers to lick their wounds.
Redick said the message for the Lakers this week is “spirit and health.” They need to find a way to believe in themselves. And they can’t afford to lose anyone else to injuries.
Both edicts are tough, but for this decimated squad the first one is especially hard to embrace.
Marcus Smart didn’t hold back when asked to quantify the team’s spirit.
“A little bit over half, if we have to put a number on it,” Smart said after the Lakers’ 131-107 win over the Jazz in their regular season finale on Sunday. “Just for the simple fact that we lost two of our brothers, right? And we’ve been going to war with those guys, battling, the ups and the downs. So, it does bring you down.”
Making matters worse?
They’ll be facing Kevin Durant in a seven-game series.
Smart similarly didn’t sugarcoat that challenge.
“It’s brutal,” he said. “I mean, dude is one of the greatest to play this game and he moves like a guard with a big-man body.”
Well, no one is coming to save them.
Not Doncic, who was playing MVP-caliber basketball. Or Reaves, who looked like an All-Star.
The depleted Lakers are on their own.
Their superstars may be on their bench Saturday.
But it’ll be nothing but a tease, reminding everybody of what could’ve been.
