Seeing Kevin Durant go down again with a bad injury during Game 5 of the NBA Finals was very hard to watch. Many thought it was just a calf injury again but it ended up being his Achilles. Durant was seen in crutches as the NBA lost one of its best players of all-time. The Warriors went on to edge out the Raptors 106-105 to force a Game 6 back at Oracle.
It definitely feels that KD was rushed to get back on the court by the Warriors and according to Charles Barkley, he feels the same way. He appeared on ESPN’s Get Up and pointed the blame on the Warriors for letting him play.
“You’ve been asking these guys all morning if there’s somebody to blame. Yes, there is somebody to blame: the Golden State Warriors for putting KD out there. Listen, that was not right. If you go back and look at the last two weeks—the article comes out, KD’s worst nightmare that the Warriors are winning without him. Then you come out, you read the articles, the Warriors are really unhappy that KD won’t risk his Achilles, they’re frustrated with KD. Now this man has to be feeling some type of way, so I blame the Warriors for KD getting hurt, and I don’t care what they say about it. They shouldn’t have put that man out there. You know how I know it? Because he blew out his Achilles.”
“I don’t think you can ever leave it up to a player. Players always want to play. But … to put a guy, who hasn’t played basketball in over a month into Game 5 of the Finals, and had some type of move around the day before, I don’t think that’s fair to that man, and you saw the result—it’s just not fair. It’s Game 5 of the world championship. He hasn’t played real basketball in a month. That’s unfair to put him in that situation, and the proof is in the pudding, plain and simple.”
KD was looking nice in the first quarter and was heading for a big game but just broke down. I had a feeling that he wasn’t fully ready to go. Many thought that Golden State had no chance to win the Finals without him but they still play like the same dominant team they’ve had over the last five years. There was no reason to rush him back. Flip the page to check out Charles Barkley’s take on it.