{"id":1904483,"date":"2026-04-27T03:33:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T00:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1904483"},"modified":"2026-04-27T03:33:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T00:33:18","slug":"deandre-ayton-ejected-in-game-4-as-kevin-durant-waves-goodbye-from-the-bench","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1904483","title":{"rendered":"Deandre Ayton ejected in Game 4 as Kevin Durant waves goodbye from the bench"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"Article_ContentContainer__jBNW3 article-content-container bodytext1\">\n<p>Los Angeles Lakers center Deandre Ayton was ejected from Game 4 of the Western Conference quarterfinals series against the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center after striking Houston All-Star center Alperen \u015eeng\u00fcn in the head with his left forearm.<\/p>\n<p>Ayton committed the foul with 5:41 left to play in the third quarter with the Rockets leading 76-57. \u015eeng\u00fcn was able to make one of two free throws. Rockets star Kevin Durant, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7232895\/2026\/04\/26\/kevin-durant-out-game-4-playoffs-rockets-lakers-nba\/\">who was ruled out of Game 4 with a left ankle sprain<\/a>, reacted to the Ayton\u2019s ejection with a move of his own.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Kevin Durant waving bye to Deandre Ayton after he was ejected from the game. \ud83d\udc40<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcfa NBC and Peacock <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/giqCgcmsRl\">pic.twitter.com\/giqCgcmsRl<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBA on NBC and Peacock (@NBAonNBC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBAonNBC\/status\/2048606923990147188?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 27, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The ejection ended what was a strong individual game from Ayton, as he had team-highs of 19 points and 10 rebounds in 25 minutes. But the Lakers were outscored by 18 points in Ayton\u2019s minutes while having a non-existent perimeter offense.<\/p>\n<p>The Lakers entered Game 4 with a 3-0 series lead, but Game 5 will be Wednesday in Los Angeles if necessary.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Los Angeles Lakers center Deandre Ayton was ejected from Game 4 of the Western Conference quarterfinals series against the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center after striking Houston All-Star center Alperen \u015eeng\u00fcn in the head with his left forearm. Ayton committed the foul with 5:41 left to play in the third quarter with the Rockets leading [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1904483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1904483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1904483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1904483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1904483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}