The Golden State Warriors survived Game 1 at home against the Cleveland Cavaliers, mostly because of J.R. Smith blowing the endgame on Thursday night. Smith insists that he didn’t forget the score was tied. Plenty of people feel otherwise, and the relative chaos of Game 1’s final minutes has hidden some of the other odd bits that made the first game of the Finals so interesting.
One of the early stories was the injury to Klay Thompson, which was also something caused by Smith. It looked pretty bad, but Thompson did return after suffering what was termed as a “leg contusion.”
Thompson finished with 24 points and hit some huge shots for the Dubs down the stretch. But as he said after Game 1 that, were it a regular season game, the Warriors would have been much more cautious about his status.
https://twitter.com/BenGolliver/status/1002650136575557632
That quote is even more impressive when you look at just how much he played after the injury.
It is remarkable that, with everything else that happened, Klay Thompson played 39:38 of the final 41 minutes of the game after it looked he might have suffered a gruesome leg injury. A ridiculous performance.
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) June 1, 2018
The Warriors are already likely to be shorthanded in Game 2, as Andre Iguodala was listed as doubtful by Steve Kerr on Friday. But it seems like Thompson is healthy enough to stay in the lineup. The Warriors losing another member of their starting lineup would be a huge blow. LeBron James and the Cavaliers stayed a lot closer to the Warriors in Game 1 than many expected. If Golden State is shorthanded moving forward, we could have a much longer series than we first thought.
