Anthony Davis injury update: Lakers star unlikely to play in Game 5 due to strained left groin, per

Anthony Davis was ruled out of the remainder of Game 4 of the first-round series between the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns with a left groin strain suffered in the second quarter. Davis played through a hyperextended right knee that he suffered in the second half of Game 3 against the Suns. 

The injury occurred late in the first half. Davis went up for a layup but immediately fell to the ground clutching his leg. He stayed on the floor at that point, but when he went back to the locker room for halftime, he never returned and was ultimately ruled out shortly thereafter. According to The Athletic's Shams Charania, Davis is considered day-to-day with that groin strain but is unlikely to play in Game 5. Despite that being the case, Charania reports there is optimism within the Lakers' organization that Davis' status could improve as the series moves forward. 

"He's undergoing further medical evaluation and we'll have more information tomorrow," Lakers coach Frank Vogel told reporters after the game. Vogel cited Davis' knee injury as well, praising his big man for trying to play anyway. "He was saying that his knee was sore, but that there was no way he was not going to play," Vogel said. "I thought he gave a heck of a run at it trying to compete through pain."

Davis had been absolutely dominant in Games 2 and 3, averaging 34 points and 10.5 rebounds in the Lakers' two wins in this series. In Game 4, however, he had only six points on nine shots as he dealt with that hyperextended knee. Davis has fought through injuries all season long for the Lakers, appearing in only 36 of a possible 72 games for them due to issues with his calf and Achilles tendon. 

The Lakers cannot win a championship without a healthy Davis. It's as simple as that. They still need to win two more games against Phoenix just to escape this first-round series, and if Davis isn't healthy enough to help them do that, they're going to have to lean even more heavily on LeBron James to carry the load on offense. He himself is still recovering from a high-ankle sprain, and starting shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was already out with an injury of his own. Throw in Chris Paul's shoulder and this series has been defined almost entirely by injuries. It's a sad state of affairs for what should have been one of the best matchups of the postseason. 

Clippers-Mavericks: Luka Doncic's free-throw woes have become elephant in room, and Dallas has lost its way
Doncic is 13 for 32 from the stripe in this series, and Dallas has gone from throwing haymakers to on the ropes

Had you asked the Dallas Mavericks, prior to the start of their first-round series vs. the Clippers, if they'd be happy with a 2-2 tie heading into Game 5, they almost certainly would've said yes. On paper, as a lower-seeded team going against a top-tier championship contender, they're in about as good a spot as one could reasonably expect. But it's the way they got to this point that stings. 

Dallas was up 2-0 in this series and had a 19-point lead in Game 3. You could feel the Clippers about to snap. All the pressure they were feeling after blowing that 3-1 lead vs. Denver in the bubble, the Paul George critics circling like vultures, Luka Doncic playing out of his mind -- to whatever extent momentum matters, the Mavericks had all of it. 

Now here we are, with the Clippers having completely flipped the script, stripping Dallas of its brimming confidence while reclaiming home-court advantage with a 106-81 win on Sunday. Credit the Clippers. The obits on their failed super-team experiment were already being written. Odds on Kawhi Leonard's next team were being calculated. It was all going to hell. Less resilient squads would've been booking vacations two days ago. 

But the Clippers fought back, and now it's the Mavericks on the ropes. Leonard -- who has sunk 38 of his 53 shots (72 percent) over the last three games, including 9 for 15 from 3-point range -- is suddenly on a refuse-to-lose crusade. George, who has quietly been really good this whole series, is right there with him. The Clippers have dialed all the way in defensively. 

Meanwhile, Doncic (neck strain) appears strained to hold his head up straight. He grimaced his way to 19 points on Sunday, shanking six of his seven 3-point attempts and all five of his free throws. That latter stat has become an elephant in the room. Doncic, who shot 73 percent from the free-throw line this season and 76 percent last season, is 13 for 32 (40 percent) from the stripe in this series. 

If anyone deserves some slack, it's Doncic. Again, he's playing hurt, and his level of responsibility for carrying this Mavericks team is appreciably higher than any other player in these playoffs. He averaged 38 points through the first three games. Shot 46 percent from 3. Made every play the Mavericks needed. 

Still, they need more than this at the free-throw line. If Dallas is lucky, the last two, or possibly three, games in this series are going to be tight, and we're not talking about a few misses here. Luka cannot hit anything. The free-throw line looks like the last place on earth he wants to be. A pitcher in Yankee Stadium who has lost his control. It's emblematic of the Mavericks as a whole. Their confidence has been visibly sapped. 

If a cold streak like this could be explained, perhaps you could look to Luka's 41-percent mark on off-the-dribble jumpers (typically highly contested) against his 36-percent mark on unguarded catch-and-shoots, per Synergy. Something in there might suggest a certain level of discomfort the more time he has to think. More and more, primary ball-handlers prefer to generate their shooting rhythm off the dribble. Thin as it is, it's the only explanation I can imagine. 

In light of his neck injury, it's too bad that Doncic's supposed co-star, Kristaps Porzingis, can't launch an emergency rescue mission, but that ship has seemingly sailed. Some decent numbers notwithstanding, Porzingis has been a non-factor in this series. I don't know why Dallas is posting him up so much; he's about as sturdy in there as a three-legged chair. Defensively, he's a minus. He doesn't deter anything at the rim. He struggles to guard the perimeter. He loses guys off the ball for easy cuts. 

Honestly, Porzingis' place on this Dallas team is another story for another day. There are a lot of factors, his bloated contract chief among them. For now, Dallas just has to hope for one wild-card game from Porzingis. If not for that, Luka is on his own as the sole star provider. 

If Doncic can regain his dominance, he has help. Tim Hardaway Jr. was lights out from beyond the arc in the first three games before going 0 for 4 in Game 4. Maxi Kleber, Dorian Finney-Smith, Jalen Brunson, all these guys have hit shots this series. They'll have to get hot. It's not over yet. But considering where they were with a 2-0 series lead and a 30-11 Game 3 lead, this sure is starting to feel like a series the Mavericks have let get away from them. 

NBA playoffs, betting odds, picks: 76ers, Jazz spreads among best plays for Monday's slate of games
Something to keep an eye on as the playoffs progress: all four Eastern Conference series are over, or have at least one team with three wins. Those matchups are presumably going to conclude shortly. Things are more complicated in the West. We have three 2-2 ties, and the fourth series between Memphis and Utah could get there tonight. In other words, the East might be ready for the second round well before the West is. 

Eventually, the schedule needs to bring the two conferences back together. The playoffs do end with their two champions facing off, after all. How they'll do that, though, is worth monitoring from a gambling perspective. Teams in the West might be forced to play every other day, limiting the rest injured players can get. Conversely, teams in the East just mind end up taking more nights off. Will that affect momentum? Keep an eye on the schedule moving forward. There will be opportunity there. For now, let's hone in on today's best bets. It's going to be a favorite-heavy day with this light slate.

The 76ers have lost one quarter of this entire series. It was the first quarter of the first game and the deficit was one point. Ever since then? It has been an utter demolition, and Washington has no answer for Joel Embiid whatsoever. As our own Colin Ward-Henninger noted, they've had just as many problems doubling him as they have leaving him in single coverage. Unless Washington plans on trading for another center this afternoon, nothing is going to change in this matchup. Philadelphia will complete the sweep on Monday. The pick: 76ers -8.5

Memphis has kept this No. 1 vs. No. 8 matchup closer than Washington has, at least, but that doesn't make it close. Utah is averaging 131 points per game with Donovan Mitchell back. To some extent, hot shooting is responsible, but the Jazz led the NBA in 3-point attempts during the season and finished fifth in percentage. They might fall off, but it won't be too far. The Grizzlies just don't have the personnel to keep up in that sort of track meet. If we use the 131-point figure as the bar, Memphis would need to score 126 just to push this spread. They did so only 12 times in non-overtime games this season. The Jazz just have an offensive gear that the Grizzlies don't. The pick: Jazz -5.5

Julius Randle, Knicks aren't as bad as they've looked, but expectations were probably outsized from the start
The New York Knicks finishing the truncated 2020-21 regular season on a 47-win pace, good enough for the East's No. 4 seed, caught everyone by surprise. Julius Randle's sudden All-NBA leap was equally unforeseen. Obviously, these are not mutually exclusive developments. The Knicks are what they are -- and we'll get to what, exactly, they are -- because of Randle being just enough of an offensive savior to survive on the strength of a top-five defense. 

That correlation works the opposite way, too. Randle has been awful in his first postseason, and so have the Knicks, who lost again to the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday to fall behind 3-1 in their first-round series with the potential elimination game looming on Wednesday. 

Through the first three games, Randle shot 24 percent (13-for-54) from the field. Among players who've taken at least 50 shots, that was the worst three-game start to a postseason in the shot-clock era. Throw in R.J. Barrett's 13-for-38, and New York's best two players -- or at least the two players we look at as the truest barometer of what this team might, or might not, become -- shot 28 percent as New York fell into a 2-1 hole. 

The Game 4 numbers look better on paper:

Randle: 23 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists
Barrett: 12 points, six rebounds, four assists
Together, Barrett and Randle shot 15-for-34 from the field on Sunday. They were a collective minus-24 in their 70 minutes. If numbers don't always tell the story, these ones, through four games of this series, do. Randle isn't even close to as bad as he's looked in this series. But he and Barrett are clearly not ready to be the top players on a team that expects to be something more than a nice regular-season story. There's little clarity as to whether they ever will be.