The Lakers get another devastating blow to their title hopes.
The Los Angeles Lakers just got the worst possible news at the worst possible time, with ESPN's Shams Charania reporting on Saturday that guard Austin Reaves has been diagnosed with a Grade 2 left oblique muscle injury and will miss the remainder of the regular season.
The 4-to-6 week timeline means Reaves won't just miss the final stretch of games, but he's also expected to be out for at least the first round of the playoffs and potentially into the second round, assuming the Lakers even get that far.
The injury happened during Thursday's blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder when Reaves reached back for a rebound and felt something in his left side.
He left the game briefly but came back and finished with 15 points before being pulled.
The MRI process was a mess too, with the Dallas imaging facility scanning the wrong area the first time and forcing Reaves to go through the whole thing twice.
A Season Cut Short at the Wrong Time
This has been the best year of Reaves' career and it's not even close, with the 27-year-old averaging 23.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game through 51 games while shooting 48.9 percent from the field.
He had become the second-best player on one of the best teams in the Western Conference, and he and Luka Doncic had settled into a rhythm that was carrying the Lakers through a dominant stretch in March that saw them go 15-2.
And that's the other part of this, because Reaves isn't the only star going down.
Doncic suffered a Grade 2 left hamstring strain in the same Thunder game and was also ruled out for the rest of the regular season, ending a year where he was putting up 33.5 points, 7.7 rebounds and 8.3 assists per game through 64 games and had just won Western Conference Player of the Month for March.
What Does This Mean for the Playoffs?
The Los Angeles Lakers sit at 50-27 on the season and hold the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference with five games left.
Denver is right behind them at 50-28 and Houston is lurking at 48-29. Without their two leading scorers, the Lakers could easily slide down the standings before the postseason starts on April 18.
Head coach JJ Redick said the team is taking an "all hands on deck" approach and plans to lean on LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, Luke Kennard, and Deandre Ayton with expanded offensive roles.
The problem is that James had settled into a third option role over the past several weeks and was averaging just 15.6 points and 11.7 shots per game over his last seven.
At 41, asking him to flip a switch and carry the scoring load is a tall order.
Can LeBron Carry Them Again?
The reality is that this Los Angeles Lakers team was built around Doncic and Reaves doing the heavy lifting on offense, and the whole roster buying into that structure is what made everything click.
Without both of them, the Lakers are staring at a first-round exit unless one or both get healthy faster than expected.
The earliest Reaves could return is around the start of the second round, which begins as early as May 2.
The Lakers went from being one of the scariest teams in the West to a team limping into the playoffs without their two best offensive weapons.
The season isn't over, but the margin for error just disappeared entirely.