The Los Angeles Lakers have secured the third seed in the Western Conference thanks to a 140-109 win over the Houston Rockets at Crypto.com Arena, but it seemed to have come at a big cost. LeBron James appeared to re-aggravate his groin injury in the third quarter and had to leave the game.
LeBron left the game after an apparent groin injury 🙏 pic.twitter.com/mTGInMsfc3
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 12, 2025
The Lakers did not rule out James for the rest of the night, but he did not re-enter the game. It would have made no sense to take a risk this late into the season, especially with this game being a blowout.
The big concern here, of course, was that James had missed seven games in March after suffering a left groin strain against the Boston Celtics. LeBron wasn’t too concerned about the injury after that game, but he ended up missing around two weeks.
The 50-31 Lakers could not afford that being the case again, but it turns out there’s no reason to sound the alarm. Head coach JJ Redick stated postgame that the 21-time All-Star is fine.
There’s never a good time for a player to get injured, but going down when the playoffs are just around the corner is close to about as bad as it can get. With the Lakers likely to face the Golden State Warriors or Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round, they certainly need James to be fit and firing from the get-go.
James finished with 14 points (6-11 FG), four rebounds, eight assists, and one steal against the Rockets. The 40-year-old had just started to get back to his best after coming back from that last groin injury, and it’d have been a shame if he ended up missing time again.
Had James been out for a while, the Lakers would have needed Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves to step up in a big way. They did play well against the Rockets, with Doncic having 39 points (13-19 FG), eight rebounds, seven assists, and one steal, while Reaves put up 23 points (9-15 FG), seven rebounds, six assists, and two steals.
The Lakers will face off against the Portland Trail Blazers at Moda Center on Sunday at 3:30 PM ET to close out the regular season. With the third seed locked up, expect them to give some much-needed rest to their big guns.
