The Golden State Warriors haven’t had Kevin Durant for the first two games of the 2019 NBA Finals, and as Steve Kerr announced on Tuesday afternoon, the two-time Finals MVP won’t play in Game 3, either. But Durant isn’t the only banged up Warrior right now, and as we learned on Tuesday, there’s a chance he’s not the only Golden State standout who can’t go on Wednesday.
Klay Thompson left in the fourth quarter of the team’s Game 2 win with a hamstring injury. It looked awfully serious, but Thompson isn’t one to miss games if he can help his team, so when Kerr gave an update after the game on Sunday, he let it be known that Thompson had zero intention to sit out.
“Klay said he’ll be fine, but Klay could be half dead and he would say he would be fine,” Kerr said.
Fast forward to Thursday and the prognosis was a little less rosy — Kerr used the words “day-to-day” and “questionable” to describe his sharpshooting wing. Thompson, meanwhile did a little on-court work to test out the injury.
Klay Thompson on the court testing his hamstring pic.twitter.com/UlsQD9OKWm
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) June 4, 2019
Thompson also spoke with the media and made it clear that, while he hopes to play, he’s going to listen to his body.
“Obviously I would do anything I can to be out there, but it’s all in [the training staff’s] hands,” Thompson said. “If there’s any pain, it will be a no-go just because of the position we’re in. This could be a longer series, so there’s no point in trying to go out there and re-aggravate it and potentially keep myself out of the whole entire Finals instead of just one game. So like I said, it will be a game-time decision. But I really want to be out there.”
Even with DeMarcus Cousins’ emergence in Game 2 and the series moving to Oakland for the next two games, Thompson would be an unspeakably huge loss if he couldn’t go. His hot shooting played a major role in the team’s Game 2 victory, and this postseason, Thompson has averaged 19.5 points per game with some stingy perimeter defense.
