LeBron James downplayed the extent of the lingering ankle injury that forced him to exit the Los Angeles Lakers 130-120 loss to the Sacramento Kings at Crypto.com Arena with 3:56 to go in the fourth quarter.

“Yeah, I'll be alright,” he said.

LeBron headed to the locker room with the Lakers' trailing by 14. Darvin Ham said he saw LeBron “grimace” and called a timeout. Ham said postgame the had no information on the injury, other than LeBron was going through the “evaluation process” and that the Lakers would issue an update later on.

Taking questions at his locker a few minutes later, LeBron said the left ankle injury he's been managing for months flared up.

“It's just my ankle,” he said. “It's just what I've been dealing with before the break, after the break. Just managing the best way I can. Played the whole third. Sat a little bit to start the fourth. And when I got back in, it kind of just — whatever, just something I've been dealing with.”

LeBron is customarily listed on the Lakers' injury report as questionable with “left ankle peroneal tendinopathy” — a.k.a wear-and-near soreness of a tendon on the outer foot/ankle. The 39-year-old has missed nine games this season, the majority of which have been due to the ankle.

“Some games its better than others,” LeBron noted. “I didn't feel it at all against OKC, and I didn't feel it at all until the fourth quarter tonight. Each game, each day is different.”

At the time of his exit, LeBron had 31 points on 10-of-16 shooting and 13 assists in 36 minutes.

In his 21st season, LeBron is averaging 25.2 points, 7.1 rebounds and 7.9 assists on .527/.407/.732 shooting splits. He was just named Western Conference Player of the Week for a stretch that included vintage crunch-time performances on consecutive nights and becoming the first player in NBA history to score 40,000 regular season points.

After the deflating loss to the Kings, the Lakers (34-30) dropped back to the No. 10 seed in the West — three games behind the Phoenix Suns (36-36) for the No. 6 spot.

Los Angeles hosts the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday, then faces the Minnesota Timberwolves, Kings again, and the Golden State Warriors.