LOS ANGELES (AP) — Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves are sitting out with sprained right ankles when the Lakers host the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday night in Los Angeles' sixth game in eight days.
The Lakers announced the decision to rest Doncic and Reaves alongside fellow injured starters LeBron James and Rui Hachimura about six hours before tipoff against the Bucks.
The Lakers also declared key rotation players Dorian Finney-Smith (left ankle) and Jarred Vanderbilt (right groin strain) out against Milwaukee. That means Los Angeles will be without its top four scorers and five of the top six when the Bucks visit.
“The substitution matrix will be a lot of fun, but, you know, we feel like we have enough guys that can move and make shots and defend that we have a chance to win,” Lakers head coach JJ Redick said during his pregame news conference.
Doc Rivers' Bucks are dealing with their own spate of injuries. Guard Damian Lillard was ruled out Thursday because of a calf injury.
“I don’t know if we’re going to be the more healthier team tonight, to be honest, but (the Lakers) not having Luka and LeBron, we’re probably the more healthier team,” Rivers said.
Los Angeles is in a brutal stretch of its schedule with 20 games in a five-week span. The Lakers have won three straight home games over the previous four days, but they also have six more games in the final 10 days of March after they host Milwaukee.
Doncic scored 31 points and Reaves had 22 in the Lakers' victory over Denver on Wednesday night.
Los Angeles has won nine consecutive home games since Feb. 19 and 16 of 17 home games overall.
Doncic has played through his persistent ankle injury, but he also sat out last Friday in Denver to rest the problem. Reaves hadn't missed a game since March 4 despite his own nagging ankle injury.
James will miss his seventh consecutive game with a groin injury, while Hachimura hasn't played since Feb. 27 due to a knee injury. When asked if it was realistic either James or Hachimura could return against Chicago on Saturday, Redick said he is “hopeful” to get one or both back in the lineup.
Los Angeles' already crowded schedule this month is even worse because the Lakers beat San Antonio on Monday in a game rescheduled from January because of the wildfires that devastated parts of Southern California. That rescheduling meant the Lakers are playing five home games in a seven-day span this week before starting a road trip in Orlando on Monday.
“I think everybody is day to day, including LeBron and Rui, but we knew post-All-Star break that this first three, four weeks was gonna be tough,” Redick said. “It's not going to get any easier, but this has been a very difficult stretch just in terms of the schedule.”
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA
Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves, left, gestures after scoring as Denver Nuggets guard Russell Westbrook stands by during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, March 19, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic, left, passes while under pressure from Denver Nuggets guard Christian Braun during the second half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, March 19, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic, center, celebrates after scoring as New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, left, walks away and guard Austin Reaves stands by during the second half of an NBA basketball game Thursday, March 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic, left, greets teammate Austin Reaves before an NBA basketball game with the Phoenix Suns, Sunday, March 16, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Wally Skalij)
LONDON (AP) — London Heathrow Airport said it was “fully operational” on Saturday, after an almost daylong closure sparked by an electrical substation fire. But thousands of passengers remained stuck, and airlines warned that severe disruption will last for days as they scramble to relocate planes and crews and get travelers to their destinations.
Friday's travel mayhem raised concerns about Britain's ability to withstand disasters or attacks on critical infrastructure. Inconvenienced passengers, angry airlines and concerned politicians all want answers about how one seemingly accidental fire could shut down Europe’s busiest air hub.
“This is a huge embarrassment for Heathrow airport. It’s a huge embarrassment for the country that a fire in one electricity substation can have such a devastating effect," said Toby Harris, a Labour Party politician who heads the National Preparedness Commission, a group that campaigns to improve resilience.
Heathrow said it had “hundreds of additional colleagues on hand in our terminals and we have added flights to today’s schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers." It advised passengers to check with their airline before going to the airport.
British Airways, Heathrow’s biggest airline, said it expected to operate about 85% of its 600 scheduled flights at the airport on Saturday. It said that "to recover an operation of our size after such a significant incident is extremely complex.”
While many passengers managed to resume stalled journeys, others remained in limbo.
Laura Fritschie from Kansas City was on vacation with her family in Ireland when she learned that her father had died. On Saturday she was stranded at Heathrow after her BA flight to Chicago was canceled at the last minute.
“I’m very frustrated," she said. “This was my first big vacation with my kids since my husband died, and ... now this. So I just want to go home.”
More than 1,300 flights were canceled and some 200,000 people stranded Friday after an overnight fire at a substation 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away from the airport cut power to Heathrow, and to more than 60,000 properties.
Residents in west London described hearing a large explosion and then seeing a fireball and clouds of smoke when the blaze ripped through the substation. The fire was brought under control after seven hours, but the airport was shut for almost 18. A handful of flights took off and landed late Friday.
Police said they do not consider the fire suspicious, and the London Fire Brigade said its investigation would focus on the electrical distribution equipment at the substation.
Still, the huge impact of the fire left authorities facing questions about Britain’s creaking infrastructure. The government acknowledged that authorities had questions to answer and said a rigorous investigation was needed to make sure “this scale of disruption does not happen again.”
Harris, from the preparedness commission, said the airport shutdown points to a broader problem with Britain’s economy and infrastructure.
“The last 40, 50 years we’ve tried to make services more efficient,” he said. “We’ve stripped out redundancy, we’ve simplified processes. We’ve moved towards a sort of ‘just in time’ economy.
“There is an element where you have to make sure you’re available for ‘just in case.’ You have to plan for things going wrong.”
Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said he was “proud” of the way airport and airline staff had responded.
"Remember, the situation was not created at Heathrow Airport," he told the BBC. “The airport didn’t shut for days. We shut for hours."
He said Heathrow's backup power supply, designed for emergencies, worked as expected, but it wasn’t enough to run the whole airport, which uses as much energy as a small city.
“That’s how most airports operate," said Woldbye, who insisted “the same would happen in other airports" faced with a similar blaze.
Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airports for international travel, and saw 83.9 million passengers last year.
Friday’s disruption was one of the most serious since the 2010 eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which shut Europe’s airspace for days.
Passengers on about 120 flights were in the air when Friday's closure was announced and found themselves landing in different cities, and even different countries.
Mark Doherty and his wife were halfway across the Atlantic when the inflight map showed their flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport to Heathrow was turning around.
“I was like, you’re joking,” Doherty said before the pilot told passengers they were heading back to New York.
Doherty called the situation “typical England — got no back-up plan for something happens like this. There’s no contingency plan.”
Associated Press journalist Kwiyeon Ha at Heathrow Airport contributed to this report.
A British Airways plane approaches landing as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Travellers wait outside the Terminal as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Travellers check the information board in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025, as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
The airport arrivals board at Terminal 5 as Britain's Heathrow Airport has closed for the full day Friday after an electrical substation fire knocked out its power, disrupting flights for hundreds of thousands of passengers at one of Europe's biggest travel hubs in London, Friday, March 21, 2025.(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
A British Airways plane is parked at Terminal 5 as Britain's Heathrow Airport has closed for the full day Friday after an electrical substation fire knocked out its power, disrupting flights for hundreds of thousands of passengers at one of Europe's biggest travel hubs in London, Friday, March 21, 2025.(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Workers are seen as smoke rises from the North Hyde electrical substation, which caught fire last night, leading to the closure of the Heathrow Airport, in London, Friday March 21, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
A handwritten sign at a Heathrow Airport tube station in London indicates the airport is closed on Friday March 21, 2025, following a fire at the North Hyde electrical substation the previous night.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A plane is prepared whilst another airplane approaches landing at Heathrow Airport after a fire at an electrical substation shuttered Europe's busiest air travel hub in London, Friday, March 21, 2025.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A traveller arrives at Terminal 5 as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Travellers wait at Terminal 5 as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Travellers arrive at Terminal 5 as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Travellers arrive at Terminal 5 as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Travellers arrives at Terminal 5 as Heathrow Airport slowly resumes flights after a fire cut power to Europe's busiest airport in London, Saturday, March 22, 2025.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
