Kevin Durant was ruled out of Houston's playoff opener against the Los Angeles Lakers with a bruised right knee about 90 minutes before tipoff. The rest of the Rockets were neither ready nor able to pick up the slack.

The Houston Rockets ruled Kevin Durant out with a knee injury before Saturday night's Game 1 matchup against the Lakers.

Sticking strictly to the math, the Lakers having to open their first-round series against Houston without Dončić (33.5 ppg) and Reaves (23.3) would seem to pose more than double the trouble the Rockets faced when Durant (26.0) was a late scratch from Game 1 of the teams’ first-round Western Conference series.

Durant, Houston’s leading scorer at 26 points per game, missed just four games during the regular season but will sit out the series opener after bumping knees with a teammate on Wednesday.

Houston Rockets star Kevin Durant will miss Game 1 of his team's playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers because of a knee injury.

Houston's starting five has been released ahead of Game 1.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Luke Kennard scored a career playoff-high 27 points, LeBron James had 19 points and 13 assists, and the short-handed Los Angeles Lakers capitalized on Kevin Durant's injury absence for a 107-98 victory over the Houston Rockets in the opener of their first-round playoff series on Saturday night.