D’Angelo Russell out for Lakers vs. Mavs with right ankle injury

The Lakers were without D’Angelo Russell in Sunday’s game against the Mavericks — an unsurprising development — but it doesn’t sound like the guard’s absence will be an extended one. Russell entered the day doubtful for the Lakers ahead of their match-up in Dallas and was ruled out rather early.

However, D’Lo did take part in a pregame warm-up, which is certainly out of the norm for a player with an ankle sprain and could indicate that he won’t be out long for the Lakers.

Russell suffered the injury in Thursday’s game against the Warriors in a freak play. After a basket from Golden State, Russell attempted to in-bound the ball but stepped on the foot of a Warriors player of out of bounds.

After clearly being in pain, Russell played on for about another minute before eventually being subbed out of the game and being ruled out at halftime. There was optimism in the immediate aftermath of the injury, though, as the team described him as day-to-day.

The Lakers are in the midst of a road trip starting on Sunday in Dallas. The team will travel to Memphis on Tuesday and Oklahoma City on Wednesday. They do then return home for a five-game homestand, so it’s certainly a more forgiving schedule after the coming days.

But considering how poorly the Lakers started the game against the Mavericks, a game where Dennis Schröder stepped back into the starting lineup with D’Lo out, the team would very certainly welcome the return of Russell as soon as possible.

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