COACH JJ REDICK ISSUES CRYPTIC "COUPLE MORE DAYS" WARNING FOR LEBRON JAMES
LeBron James remains day-to-day with hip injuries as the Lakers climb to the 4th seed behind Luka Doncic's triple-double.
LeBron James glanced over his shoulder during a timeout Tuesday night, just another moment in a season that’s starting to feel pretty uncertain for the Lakers. The team picked up a big win over the Timberwolves at Crypto.com Arena, but the bigger question hanging over everything: When will LeBron be back?
The latest update isn’t exactly comforting. The 41-year-old forward is still nursing hip and foot injuries, and it looks like he’ll be out longer than anyone hoped. Head coach JJ Redick spoke to reporters before the game and said LeBron needs “a couple more days” to recover. That’s a familiar phrase at this point.
LeBron has missed three straight games now. First, it was his elbow that he hurt against Denver, but he seemed to bounce back from that. Then he showed up on the injury report with foot and hip issues. Redick told everyone not to panic, though. He doesn’t think this turns into a long-term thing. “We want him in the lineup. With the schedule we’ve had six games in eight nights, two back-to-backs, you never know how his body will respond,” Redick said. “I wouldn’t say I expected him to miss time, but it doesn’t surprise me either.”
It’s hard to ignore the fact that LeBron’s the oldest player in the league now. “Father Time” is catching up, even if he just broke the NBA’s all-time field goals made record. Redick still called him “day-to-day.” That could mean he’s back soon, maybe not by Thursday’s game against the Bulls, but the Lakers don’t seem worried he’ll miss weeks.
“He shot before our walkthrough, just needs a couple more days,” Redick said. “Day-to-day sometimes means two days, sometimes five or six. He’s day-to-day.”
But here’s where things get interesting and maybe a little awkward. A conversation is picking up about whether the Lakers are actually better without LeBron on the floor. The numbers are hard to ignore. Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves have been on fire without him. When those two play together, and LeBron sits, the Lakers are 9–2. Their net rating is an eye-popping +16.9, with a 125.7 offensive rating and just 108.8 on defence.
Add LeBron back in, and the team’s 11-6. Not bad, but the net rating drops to +1.5, offence to 115.3, defence up to 113.9. Even when it’s just Reaves and LeBron, or Doncic and LeBron, the results are average at best.
Redick’s not shying away from those numbers. He talked about the “human element” Basically, it takes time for three big personalities and skill sets to mesh. “There’s a clear pecking order when Luka and AR are out there with low usage guys. That’s just how it works, and it’s been that way with every ‘Big 3’ ever. We’ll figure it out.”
Honestly, this might not be a long-term issue anyway. Word is, LeBron’s probably leaving the Lakers this summer and looking for a new team in free agency.
For now, the Lakers are rolling. They beat Minnesota 120-106. Luka put up a monster triple-double (31 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists, 2 steals), Reaves matched him with 31, Ayton added 14 and 12, and Kennard chipped in 10. Suddenly, L.A. has won six of its last seven and jumped to the No. 4 spot in the West, leapfrogging the Timberwolves.
But the focus is still on getting LeBron healthy and seeing if he, Doncic, and Reaves can find some real rhythm before the playoffs. Until he’s back, the Lakers will keep pushing, chasing home-court advantage, and hoping their oldest star still has something left for one more run.
TIMBERWOLVES CONFIRM DONTE DIVINCENZO IS OUT FOR THE SEASON WITH TORN ACHILLES
Anthony Edwards injury update, Donte DiVincenzo torn Achilles, Minnesota Timberwolves injuries, NBA playoff injury news.
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The Minnesota Timberwolves just got hit with some tough news right in the middle of their first-round playoff series. They won Game 4 against the Denver Nuggets, 110-96, taking a 3-1 lead, but that win comes with a high cost. Two starters, Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo, both left the game early with serious injuries, and suddenly, the rest of the playoffs feel a lot more uncertain.
The biggest worry is Anthony Edwards. He messed up his left knee late in the first half, landing awkwardly after contesting a shot. He went down right away and needed help getting to the locker room. Tests confirmed what Timberwolves fans feared: Edwards suffered a bone bruise and a hyperextension. There’s some good news here: no ligament damage, but he’s still expected to miss “multiple weeks", according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. That rules him out for the rest of the first round, and maybe even longer.
Edwards wasn’t just the Wolves’ leading scorer; he basically carried them through much of their playoff push. Now, with him out, everybody else has to pick up the slack. The pressure is real, but in Game 4, the team didn’t blink. Ayo Dosunmu came off the bench and dropped a career-high 43 points; it was just the fourth time in NBA history someone had scored 40-plus off the bench in a playoff game. Players like Mike Conley are expected to do even more now, and rotations are going to look pretty different as they scramble to adjust without their star guard.
As if that wasn’t enough, Donte DiVincenzo’s injury makes things even rougher. He went down only 79 seconds into the game. Nobody was near him; he was just chasing his own rebound and ended up tearing his right Achilles tendon. He walked off the court, but soon after, he needed a wheelchair and a splint. The Timberwolves quickly confirmed he’s out for the season.
After the game, Coach Chris Finch sounded gutted. “Completely devastating for Donte. He’s had such a great season. He’s the heart and soul of so many things that we do. You could see the look in his eye when it happened, and you knew. We’ll love him and be there for him.” DiVincenzo has been huge for Minnesota, both shooting from the perimeter and creating havoc on defence.
So now, with two major pieces missing from their backcourt, the Timberwolves are staring down the rest of this series and maybe the playoffs shorthanded. Sure, they showed resilience by winning Game 4 without their main guys, and that 3-1 cushion gives them some breathing room. But this isn’t a minor setback. It’s a test, a big one. Can the rest of these guys keep the ship steady? Game 5 will have a different look, and the pressure’s on for everyone left to step up and keep the season alive.
MARC MARQUEZ WINS CHAOTIC SPANISH GP SPRINT AFTER CRASHING IN HEAVY RAIN
MotoGP history made at Jerez! Marc Marquez takes his 17th sprint win in the first flag-to-flag Saturday race in 2026.
Marc Marquez pulled off a wild comeback to win a rollercoaster Spanish Grand Prix sprint. It was the first flag-to-flag sprint since the format started in 2023, and Marquez turned his first pole of the season into another Saturday win, though it certainly wasn’t straightforward.
He started strong, but things got hairy with five laps to go when heavy rain hit. Marquez crashed out of second, scrambled across the grass, and dashed into the pit lane for his wet-weather bike. He joined Pecco Bagnaia and Brad Binder in the swap, and when Binder made a mistake, the door cracked open for Marquez.
A gutsy pass on Bagnaia with three laps left put Marquez back out front. From there, he didn’t look back, stretching his lead to just over three seconds by the chequered flag.
Bagnaia, who started 15th in the dry, battled his way to his first sprint podium of the year, while Franco Morbidelli came from 18th to snag third for VR46.
Meanwhile, title leader Marco Bezzecchi had a nightmare from the start. A tear-off strip tangled things up, so he bogged off the line and dropped from fourth to 17th. He later swapped to wets but crashed out before the end. His Aprilia teammate Jorge Martin pulled in early with a technical problem.
Alex Marquez briefly grabbed the lead from his big brother, but the rain got him too; he crashed two laps later while leading.
At the start, Marc Marquez got off to a sharp launch, immediately taking the holeshot with the track still mostly dry. Alex wasted no time chasing him, passing Johann Zarco and cutting Marc’s early advantage. Marc played it safe as the weather turned nasty, but with six laps to go, Alex pounced for the lead at Turn 9, and almost instantly, Marc hit the deck at the last corner.
After a quick grass detour, Marc dived into the pits for wets. Bagnaia, Binder, Morbidelli, and Alex Rins followed. For a moment, Binder emerged as the leader with the rest still out on slicks, but those odds didn’t last.
Alex Marquez and VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio stayed out on slicks a bit longer, but Alex crashed at Turn 8, and Di Giannantonio finally swapped bikes a lap later.
Fermin Aldeguer hung on with slicks while everyone else had already switched. Up front, Binder held the net lead, but a mistake at Turn 2 opened the door wide.
That put the Ducati factory pair Bagnaia and Marquez on top. Marc dived inside at Turn 9 to grab the lead, never looking back. That makes 17 career sprint wins for him and jumps him to fourth in the championship, now just 24 points from the top.
Binder hung on for fourth, Di Giannantonio salvaged fifth after his late stop, and Raul Fernandez took sixth for Trackhouse Aprilia. Fabio Quartararo was seventh for Yamaha, with Zarco in eighth and Luca Marini grabbing the last point for Honda.
Crashes piled up: Joan Mir (Honda), Bezzecchi, Lorenzo Savadori, Toprak Razgatlıoğlu, and Pedro Acosta, although Acosta did remount to finish 12th.
Despite wiping out, Bezzecchi keeps the championship lead, just four points ahead of his Aprilia teammate Jorge Martin.
