Golden State’s Kevin Durant continued Achilles injury at 9:46 of the second quarter of Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday, the extent of which will be determined when Durant undergoes an MRI exam on Tuesday.
Warriors general manager Bob Myers fought back tears and choked up as he spoke about the injury following his team’s 106-105 triumph over the Toronto Raptors.
“Prior to coming back he went through four weeks with a medical team, and it was thorough and it was experts and multiple MRIs and multiple doctors, and we felt good about the process,” Myers said.
“The initial injury was a calf injury. This is not a calf injury. I’m not a doctor, I don’t know how those are related or not, but it’s a different injury.”
Durant limped off the floor and into the locker room with assistance from Warriors director of sports medicine Rick Celebrini.
Durant was dribbling and trying to make out of here Toronto’s Serge Ibaka when he came up faltering on his right leg. He sat on the court for a brief time before getting up with a limp.
Myers and forward Andre Iguodala went to the locker room with Durant, who was making his debut in these Finals after missing the previous month with stressed right calf.
“He was cleared to play tonight; that was a collaborative decision,” Myers said. “I don’t believe there’s anybody to blame, but I understand in this world and if you have to, you can blame me. I run our basketball operations department. And to tell you something about Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant loves to play basketball, and the people that questioned whether he wanted to get back to this team were wrong.”
Durant was found in the Scotiabank Arena hallways in a walking boot and he was using crutches.
Durant was at last cleared to play by the Warriors’ medicinal staff on Monday and was headed toward a fantastic start. He made his initial two shots he endeavored – both 3-pointers – and had 11 points when he went down close to the break in the 3-point line opposite Golden State’s bench.
Before the game, Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters, “I don’t want to put too much of a burden on him. It’s been a while, we don’t know how it’s going to go, how it’s going to look, but just his mere presence makes a huge difference for us, so we’ll start him and play him in short bursts and see how he responds physically, see if his wind is OK and as the game goes, we’ll try to figure it out from there.”
In the 4th quarter, the Warriors likewise declared that Kevon Looney was accomplished for the game after re-aggravating his injury.