Jimmy Butler saw his night come to an end early on Wednesday after taking a brutal fall.
The Golden State Warriors star Butler was injured in the first quarter of Game 2 against the Houston Rockets. Butler was going up for a defensive rebound when he was undercut by Rockets forward Amen Thompson. As a result, the airborne Butler crashed hard to the deck, appearing to land directly on his tailbone.
Here is the video (in which you can see that Thompson may have been nudged into Butler’s path by Golden State’s Draymond Green).
Thompson was called for a loose ball foul on the play, and Butler remained in the game to shoot his two free throws. But Butler had to sub out less than a minute later and went straight to the locker room.
In the middle of the second quarter, the Warriors announced that Butler would not return to the game due to a “pelvis contusion.”
Butler finished his night with just three points and two rebounds in eight minutes of play. He had an amazing stat line of 25 points, seven rebounds, six assists, and five steals in Golden State’s Game 1 win on Sunday, so losing Butler was obviously a tough one for the Warriors.
Golden State did buy themselves some leeway in the series by stealing Game 1 on the road (before the series heads over to the Bay Area for Games 3 and 4). But Butler may be facing an uphill battle to recover after taking a spill that was reminiscent of the one that star teammate Steph Curry had last month too.
