Lakers Injury Report: Warriors Starter Downgraded Before Game 6 With New Ailment

A huge break for LA if he does have to miss the contest.

Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins, who has alternately started at either the three or four spot in his team's ongoing second round playoff series against your Los Angeles Lakers, may not be available for a must-win Game 6 in Crypto.com Arena Friday, with Golden State trailing the series 3-2.

Anthony Slater of The Athletic reports that Wiggins has been downgraded to merely questionable to suit up with a ribcage fracture, specifically to his left costal cartilage. 

Should the Lakers win at home tomorrow, they will advance to their second Western Conference Finals in four seasons with Anthony Davis and LeBron James leading the way for the franchise. Every single other rotation player is completely different on this 2023 roster. 

Given this bad news about Wiggins and some relatively good news about a potentially scary head injury to Anthony Davis, a Lakers victory Friday now feels like the most probable outcome.

Slater notes that the injury seemed to happen on this play midway through the fourth quarter of an eventual 121-106 blowout Warriors win over Los Angeles. Wiggins seems to injure the ribcage while fighting with LeBron James beneath the basket for rebounding position.

Andrew Wiggins appeared to first show rib discomfort after this box out crack of LeBron James in the middle of the fourth quarter. Kept grabbing at his ribs the next few minutes. Costal cartilage fracture. His Game 6 status is in question.

Here is a look. pic.twitter.com/9CDwETFvrJ

— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) May 12, 2023

Wiggins has been a critical two-way piece for Golden State in this series so far. He's averaging 16.8 points on .477/.375/.867 shooting splits, 6.0 rebounds, 2.8 assists, and 0.6 steals a night, as essentially the Warriors' fourth option behind stars Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green (though Green doesn't score as much as Wiggins, he has the ball in his hands more to run the offense for the team, a duty he splits with Curry).

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