The Los Angeles Lakers host the Minnesota Timberwolves to determine who will be the seventh seed in the Western Conference on Tuesday night. The Memphis Grizzlies are awaiting the winners in the first round of the NBA Playoffs while the losers will get one more shot at the playoffs against the winner of the New Orleans Pelicans and Oklahoma City Thunder game.
This has been an interesting season for both teams as they both have dealt with various injuries and storylines throughout the year. It is fitting that these two teams are squaring off in the play-in as there are ties between the team that exist in D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley.
Luckily for the Lakers, their supporting cast is in a much better place than Minnesota’s supporting cast is. That hasn’t been the case for most of the year. Here is everything you need to know injury-wise ahead of this matchup.
Updated Lakers injury report vs Timberwolves:
Update: Dennis Schroder has officially been removed from the Lakers injury report.
Things are looking really promising for the Los Angeles Lakers. Both LeBron James and Anthony Davis were frequent members of the Lakers injury report as the team was being precautions with their injuries once they returned. For the first time since both players hurt their foot, neither is even listed on the injury report.
The newest Lakers, Tristan Thompson and Shaquille Harrison, are both listed as day-to-day. However, these two players were merely depth signings and were not going to play much of a role in the rotation anyway.
The only notable Laker with an injury right now is Dennis Schroder. Schroder did not play in Sunday’s season finale against the Jazz because of Achilles soreness. Schroder was also dealing with lingering neck soreness, so that was probably the Lakers just being safe with him in the final day of the season.
Updated Timberwolves injury report vs Lakers:
The Timberwolves suffered a catastrophic injury on the last day of the regular season that completely changes who they are as a basketball team. Jaden McDaniels decided to pull a LeBron circa 2018 NBA Finals and punched his way to a fractured hand.
Jaden McDaniels punched a wall so hard he put himself out of the game pic.twitter.com/QJQFoMI1i2
— Pelicans Film Room (@PelsFilmRoom) April 9, 2023
McDaniels is not going to play on Tuesday against the Lakers and could miss another 5-6 weeks with the injury. Minnesota’s season will likely be over by the time his hand is fully healed to resume basketball activities.
Rudy Gobert is also without the team for a different punch. Gobert didn’t punch the wall and fracture his hand, he instead tried to punch teammate Kyle Anderson. The Timberwolves suspended Gobert one game because of the incident and he will not be with the team at all on Tuesday.
In non-punching injury news, Jaylen Nowell’s status for the play-in game is unclear as he has missed time with a knee injury. However, the young guard is apparently trending in the right direction.
Naz Reid is also out of action.