The veteran forward made his return to the court after missing nine games.
LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Lakers welcomed back LeBron James and Rui Hachimura to the lineup on Saturday after both players had missed several games due to injury.
In Rui Hachimura’s case, he had been sidelined for nine games due to a knee injury.
Hachimura was upgraded to available in the hours before the Lakers’ 146-115 loss to the Chicago Bulls, and with a change in his situation.
Lakers head coach JJ Redick opted to bring Hachimura off the bench while continuing to start Dorian Finney-Smith.
Prior to the game, Redick acknowledged that Hachimura would be on a minutes restriction for multiple games.
Rui Hachimura’s playing time is going to be around 20-24 minutes, and he was listed as questionable on the Lakers injury report for their upcoming game against the Orlando Magic on Monday.
He played a total of 18 minutes against the Bulls, and after the game he spoke about where he feels he’s at in terms of his injury recovery.
“It’s like 70-80 [percent]. My knee is gonna be like that for a while. I can’t really get back to 100 percent. I got to rest for a long time to get back to normal, but I don’t think we have that,” Hachimura said. “So we’re just going to maintain and manage it.”
With 12 games remaining in the regular season, and the Lakers going through a compressed portion of their schedule, Redick admitted that the team isn’t going to have ample practice time to get James and Hachimura readjusted to the lineup.
Against the Bulls, Hachimura finished with only five points while shooting 2-of-6 from the field and 1-of-4 from three-point range.
He admitted that the knee injury is just something he’s going to have to manage for the remainder of the regular season amid a tight playoff race in the Western Conference.
“Whatever you do, jumps, stops, slides, everything’s gonna feel it,” Hachimura said. “That’s gonna be the key for me, just getting stronger. All the movements, all this stuff, everything is gonna feel it. So I have to kind of manage it and play through it.”
Prior to his injury, Hachimura had become one of the Lakers’ most dependable role players. He was among their most consistent catch and shoot three-point shooters as well as one of the best at moving without the ball.
He’s appeared in 51 games this season at a little over 31 minutes per game.
He’s averaged 13.1 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.5 assists with splits of 50.4 percent shooting from the field, 40.7 percent shooting from the three-point line and 76.5 percent shooting from the free-throw line.
