I’m not sure what’s better: Magloire using the cup to communicate, or how quickly the internet fell in love with it and turned it into a meme. Probably the latter.
Klay Thompson went down with a left knee injury during Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night.
Late in the third quarter, Thompson was going for a dunk and got fouled by Danny Green. He missed the dunk and landed awkwardly on his left knee and went down to the floor grabbing it.
Thompson was being taken to the locker room before being informed that he had to shoot his free throws otherwise he would not be allowed to return to the game. The Golden State Warriors guard returned from the tunnel onto the court, took his free throws and made both. He went back on defense but the game was stopped on a DeMarcus Cousins foul, which allowed Thompson to be replaced.
Here's Klay Thompson needing help just to get off the court, going down the hall, slowly starting to be able to walk under his own power, then reversing course to go shoot those FT's. This is amazing. pic.twitter.com/1TawOxhGBk
Thompson then went back into the tunnel to receive medical attention in the locker room. He was shown by ABC trying to run down the tunnel.
Thompson was on fire during the game, living up to his “Game 6 Klay” moniker. He had 30 points on 8-for-12 shooting, including 10-for-10 at the line when he left the game.
Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse complained to the officials during Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night because he thought Golden State’s players were interfering with the Raptors’ corner three-point shot attempts.
During the second quarter of the game, Pascal Siakam made a corner three in front of Golden State’s bench to put Toronto up 43-38 on the Warriors. You could see one of the Warriors’ players jump up off the bench and appear to shout something at Siakam as he shot the ball.
After that happened, Nurse was seen complaining to the officials, and ABC analyst Jeff Van Gundy said he thought the Warriors were interfering on corner threes. That seemed to be the case on Siakam’s shot.
Toronto made three-point shooting a big part of their early success in the game, as Kyle Lowry was making his outside shots as well as Siakam.
Toronto Raptors assistant coach Jamaal Magloire went viral for his method of communication with his team’s players.
During ABC’s broadcast of Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Thursday, the network shared video of Magloire using a paper cup with a hole poked in it to yell. They said he was using it to communicate with the team’s players, though some also thought he may have been using it to also try distracting Steph Curry at the free throw line.
Raptors assistant coach Jamaal Magloire using a paper cup to yell instructions and to try to distract Steph Curry at the free throw line LOL pic.twitter.com/DrGIzXHTmQ
Analysts Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy seemed dumbfounded by Magloire’s ingenuity and kept saying they had never seen anything like it before.
That’s some advanced thinking by Magloire, who is an assistant coach, Basketball Development Consultant, and ambassador for the Raptors. The 41-year-old former NBA All-Star is a Toronto native.
Pascal Siakam was benched for the final nine minutes of his Toronto Raptors’ 106-105 loss to the Golden State Warriors in Game 5 on Monday night, and now we know why.
Raptors head coach Nick Nurse was asked about it and told reporters Thursday that he wasn’t happy with Siakam’s defense.
Nick Nurse says Pascal Siakam not playing the last nine minutes was because Nurse was frustrated with his defensive effort, rather than missing shots.
Siakam played 34 minutes in the game and was the only member of the starting lineup to have a negative +- number (-5). He also didn’t shoot that well either, going 6-for-15 while missing all of his 3-pointers.
Siakam had a breakout game with his 32-point performance in Game 1 of the series. The Warriors vowed to stop him the next game and did, holding him to a 5-for-18 shooting effort. Toronto would love to have the Game 1 version of Siakam back as they look to close out the title in Game 6.
Durant is out after suffering a torn Achilles tendon during Game 5 of the series in Toronto and facing potentially a year-long absence. He is still a big part of the team despite not being able to play.
Cook and Durant go way back and have been friends for 15 years. They grew up in the Maryland suburbs of the Washington D.C. area and bonded through basketball after being introduced through the PG Jaguars traveling team. When he was in college, Cook went to Oklahoma City to train with Durant, who was with the Thunder at the time. For those reasons, Durant’s absence hits Cook harder than most.
DeMarcus Cousins has had some stretches of play during the NBA Finals where he looks like his old self, but there have been other times when he looks extremely rusty. That was to be expected after he suffered a torn quad muscle less than two months ago, and the All-Star big man admits he is dealing with some conditioning issues.
Cousins said this week that he has been trying to “push through” and simply doesn’t know how his body will react from day to day.
“I’m still at the point where I’m trying to train my legs to be at that level 100 percent of the time. I just haven’t had time to focus on that,” Cousins admitted this week, via Anthony Slater of The Athletic. “It’s hard to condition midseason. It’s hard to get that balance of conditioning, rest, being ready to play. It’s a hard balance. I need the offseason, when that can be the priority.”
Cousins had a a strong six-minute stretch during Game 5 that Warriors coach Steve Kerr said was the difference between a win and a loss. With Kevin Durant now officially out for Game 6 and Game 7 (if it’s needed) and Kevin Looney listed as questionable for Thursday night, Golden State needs Cousins now more than ever.
After scoring 14 points in just 20 minutes in Game 5, Cousins should have plenty of confidence. The question is whether or not his body will feel good enough to be at his best. If it does, the Warriors will have that much better of a chance at forcing a Game 7.
The Golden State Warriors are playing their most important game of the season on Thursday night, and it will be an emotional one for a number of different reasons. Their rally towels are a reflection of that.
Game 6 of the NBA Finals could be the Warriors’ final game of the season, but it will definitely be the last game they play at Oracle Arena in Oakland. They will also once again be playing without Kevin Durant, who suffered a torn Achilles in Game 5. The rally towels they are handing out give a nod to both Durant and the city of Oakland.
The Warriors are moving to a new state of the art arena in San Francisco next year. They’re hopeful they can re-sign Durant this offseason, but it may also end up being the last game in which he is a part of the team — injured or not.
Durant’s mother indicated earlier in the week that there could potentially be some tension between the Warriors and the Durant family, but the rally towels are a nice gesture. It should be a fun night at Oracle Arena.
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr defended the organization’s handling of Kevin Durant’s injury and suggested that he wouldn’t go back and do anything differently in the leadup to Game 5.
Durant suffered an Achilles injury during his first game back from a calf problem, and many blamed the Warriors for their handling of the star player. Kerr defended the team, saying multiple doctors, including an outside consultant, cleared Durant to play and suggested there was no risk for an Achilles tear.
Steve Kerr said KD was cleared by multiple parties, including an outside consultant. They were told reinjury of calf was only concern, Achilles tear wasn't: "Would we go back and do it over again? Damn right."
The Warriors have been criticized for a lot over the last day since Durant got hurt, and his own mother didn’t exactly defend them in a television appearance. The Warriors are eager to make it clear that they did everything by the book and ran into bad luck, but there’s not a lot Kerr can say to change anyone’s mind at this point.
If the Golden State Warriors are looking for someone to absolve them and their medical staff of any liability for the injury Kevin Durant suffered in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, they are not going to get that from Durant’s mother.
Since Durant suffered what is believed to be a torn Achilles on Monday night, a lot of prominent people have blamed the Warriors for allowing him to play when there was an increased risk of hurting himself further. Durant’s mother, Wanda, had a chance to defend Golden State’s medical staff during an appearance on “Good Morning America” on Wednesday, but she stopped well short of doing that. You can hear her comments at around the 2:38 mark below:
“It’s still out right now. We don’t know. He felt he was able to play. They said he could play, so we still have to analyze that and see if they made the right decision,” Wanda said. “That’s kind of up in the air right now.”
Wanda also noted that Kevin was told by doctors that it would be fine to play.
“What I will say is the doctors said that he was OK. Kevin couldn’t have gone on his own and (decided to play) without the advice of the doctors, so they said he was OK,” she added. “They share responsibility for him playing.”
It would have been easy to envision a situation where doctors advised Durant to sit out and he played anyway, but it does not sound like that was the case. The Warriors have also implied that Durant’s latest injury is different from the calf strain that held him out before, but it would be a stunning coincidence if the two were unrelated.
