Lakers’ Anthony Davis leaves win over Raptors with eye injury

LOS ANGELES – Lakers forward Anthony Davis was ruled out of Sunday night’s 123-103 win over the Toronto Raptors because of a left eye injury.

Davis went to the locker room midway through the third quarter after being hit in the face while blocking a dunk attempt by Toronto center Jakob Poeltl.

Davis blocked Poeltl’s dunk attempt in the lane one-handed, but Poeltl’s offhand hit Davis in the face and eyes.

As the Lakers’ home crowd cheered, Davis went down in obvious pain, rocking back and forth on the floor with his hands on his face. He lay there for about a minute before getting up and heading to the Lakers’ locker room.

Sources told ESPN’s Dave McMenamin that Davis suffered swelling from the contact that made it difficult to keep his left eye open. According to sources, Davis will have the eye examined by an ophthalmologist on Monday as a “precautionary measure.”

Davis suffered a corneal abrasion in the same eye in March.

He left the arena on Sunday without speaking to reporters.

“All I know is he got stung in it,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said of Davis’ eye injury. “He had trouble seeing. Apparently it’s a minor trauma to the eye that takes a while to see clearly again. But other than that, no update.”

Jaxson Hayes took Davis’ place in the Lakers’ rotation and quickly contributed three dunks and a layup as the Lakers took the lead.

“I thought Jaxson was great tonight,” Lakers guard Austin Reaves said after Hayes finished with 12 points and 6 rebounds. “Especially in the third quarter, I thought he probably played one of his best games since he’s been here. He was active defensively, was a scorer in the pocket and a rebounder. I thought he did a lot of really good things.”

Davis is off to an excellent start to the season, which has already sparked MVP rumors for the nine-time All-Star. He had 22 points, 4 rebounds and 2 blocks before getting injured against the Raptors.

Davis led the NBA entering the night, scoring 32.4 points per game along with 11.3 rebounds and 2.8 assists. He has already had six 30-point games this season.

Davis missed Wednesday’s game at Memphis because of a bruised left heel. The big man has a long history of injury problems, but last season he played a career-high 76 games.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.