Kevin Durant and DeMarcus Cousins are not close to returning to action, Warriors coach Steve Kerr told the media, including the Associated Press’ Janie McCauley, on Monday.
A report earlier in the day indicated Durant would miss at least Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals on Tuesday with his calf strain. Durant was injured during Game 5 of the conference semifinals against Houston.
Kerr said Durant hadn’t “even stepped on the floor” yet, so any speculation about when he’ll return is pointless.
“We’ve tried to remain somewhat vague because the injury is really sort of open-ended in terms of how long he’s going to need to recover. But I think in doing so people have gotten the idea that he’s going to come back and be Willis Reed or something,” Kerr said. “He hasn’t even stepped on the floor yet, he still has pain. There’s time ahead of him on the rehab process.”
Golden State defeated Houston on the road Saturday without Durant to wrap up that series. Now, the Warriors are faced with the possibility of playing without Durant for much, if not all, of the conference finals against Portland. The Trail Blazers are banged up as well, as they’ve advanced through the playoffs without starting center Jusuf Nurkic. Key reserve Rodney Hood suffered a bone bruise on his knee Sunday in Game 7 against Denver.
Cousins partially tore his left quadriceps muscle in Game 2 of the first round against the Clippers. There has been growing optimism that he’d back at some point during the conference finals but Kerr downplayed that possibility.
“He hasn’t had any live stuff on the court yet, so he’s not that close either,” Kerr said. “Hopefully another week goes by and things start to get better and now we have a better prognosis. At this point we’re getting ready for this series without both of them.”
Could? How about “Will”
Ol Kerr playing mind games about KD. I feel like he plays if they get past Portland.
Hence the headline …
Couldn’t be worse for KD. He goes down and his team wins anyways proving how empty his stats really are. Best record in history before he was there
But lost to Cavs in 7 games…
No, lost to the refs/league giving LeBron his Cleveland championship to drive their narrative. NBA has incorporated the star drama from the wwe/wwf
He’s right they lost to the Cavs because they choked
That is such a weak argument to make, especially considering it comes from a fan of a team that has been historically great. Let’s take a trip down factual history.
a) Draymond was not suspended for punching LBJ in the nuts. He was suspended because punching someone in the nuts is a technical foul and he had accumulated enough fouls from previous assaults on NBA player’s nuts as well as for arguing with coaches. It was a cumulative thing and Draymond was well aware that he needed 1 more technical for automatic suspension. No conspiracy. Just lack of thought on Draymond’s behalf.
2) They DID beat GSW with Dray on the court 3 out of 6 times so it’s not like has some sort of LBJ/Cavs kryptonite.
3) If you want to play the Draymond 1 game suspension card then the Cavs can play the no Kev Love or Kyrie card for the 2014-15 initial meeting. 5 of 6 games without Kyrie and 6 of 6 games without Kevin Love. If Dray is sooooo important to a team that had 2 other all-stars and 1 former all-star then how big is it for the Cavs to be without 2 of their 3 ONLY players with all-star distinction? LBJ only had 1 game where a teammate scored 20 or more and that was Timofy Mozgov and they still took the GSW to 6 games having 3 current all-stars and Iggy for all but 1 game.
Which way you want it son?
arguing with refs, I meant.
Don’t forget Bogut got knocked out of the Finals by Smith, allowing Leflop to go to the rim.
Today I learned who Willis Reed is
educate yourself on the game son!
That means you don’t know the NBA
You don’t need to know who Willis Reed is to understand basketball in the NBA today. Knowing NBA history does NOT equal knowing NBA basketball.
He said he didn’t know the “NBA”. He didn’t say he didn’t”understand basketball in the NBA. If someone doesn’t know who Ted Williams is, then they don’t know baseball. Same vibe.
That’s what I said, do you know how to read? Literally my last sentence, “knowing NBA history does NOT equal knowing NBA basketball”. If you know who Kevin Huerter and Jalen Brunson are then you probably know the NBA today. If you know who Willis Reed is, you know NBA HISTORY. Not the NBA in general. If you want to nitpick at least do it right. Older heads use knowing history as a way to try to be gatekeepers. They’re like “how can you talk about basketball and you don’t even know who Willis Reed is?” and they go and pick OKC in 6 over Portland because they don’t WATCH basketball anymore.
I’m not convinced that KD is dealing with only a mild calf strain. I wouldn’t be shocked if it comes out later that it is actually an achilles strain/mild tear. Also wouldn’t be surprised to see KD miss the rest of the playoffs, depending how long the Warriors go versus the Blazers
Blazers in 7.
If Durant and Cousins are out for the WCF and Lillard, CJ and Kanter are healthy and play well then I really think Portland will win this in 6.
-GSW have no rim protectors beyond Looney if Durant, Cousins and Bogut are out.
-Lillard and CJ are going to attack the rim and can get Looney and Dray into foul trouble.
-Dame and CJ can wear out Curry and Thompson on offense and Blazers can sub in guys that can keep the foot on the pedal like Seth Curry, Rodney Hood (if healthy) and Turner.
-Blazers’ have skilled bigs whose physicality can be a handful for Looney and Dray. Kanter @ 6-11, Leonarnd and Collins @ 7ft. All 240-260. They can all dominate down below and put pressure on the GSW bigs.
I think the key to beating GSW is for the guards to attack the paint, feed the ball down to the bigs when they have a match up advantage and kick out for 3s. GSW simply doesn’t have a lot of depth and I think Blazers should be able to protect the rim. The Blazers have multiple ways to attack and switch in and out personell. GSW can’t afford to NOT have Curry and Klay on the court for less than 40 minutes imo.
Blazers in 6.