Suns’ injury report clean ahead of potential elimination game for Lakers

The Phoenix Suns have one of their cleanest injury reports in a while ahead of Tuesday’s matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Frank Kaminsky (knee) and Dario Saric (knee) remain long-term absences but no other Phoenix players are listed. This follows the Suns resting Deandre Ayton, Devin Booker and Jae Crowder for Sunday’s loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Los Angeles, meanwhile, is listing Anthony Davis (right mid-foot sprain) and LeBron James (left ankle sprain) as questionable. Davis missed 18 games because of the injury before playing 37 and 35 minutes in his first two games back. James sat out two games after spraining the ankle on March 27. He returned on Friday before not playing on Sunday because of the ankle.

It is the Lakers’ biggest game of the year and could be one they need to win to keep their season alive after slipping in the standings the last couple of weeks.

The Lakers will enter Tuesday’s action two games back of the San Antonio Spurs for the Western Conference’s final play-in spot. The crucial bit of this is that the Spurs own the tiebreaker, so it’s essentially an extra game Los Angeles has to make up for.

The Lakers have four regular season games left and the Spurs start playing in Denver against the Nuggets 90 minutes before tip-off in Phoenix on Tuesday. If San Antonio wins, that means Los Angeles would be just one loss or Spurs win away from elimination, which could come later that night against the Suns.

That, of course, would have Phoenix end the Lakers’ season two years in a row.

The Suns are 3-0 against the Lakers in the regular season. When going back to last postseason, Phoenix has won the last six games between the two teams.

Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m. and you can tune in to 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station to hear all the action.

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