The NBA playoffs are heating up right now and we’re close to the homestretch where it’s determined which two teams will face off in the NBA Finals.
It was the first in a long time that superstar LeBron James didn’t make the playoffs (eight straight years in the Finals) and many questioned whether this post-season would be boring without him, especially with the juggernaut Golden State Warriors all-time squad being perennial overwhelming favorites once again.
But these NBA playoffs have been electric and a wild thing happened in the NBA last week that you won’t believe.
Early last week in game 5 when the Houston Rockets were at Golden State Warriors, Kevin Durant – arguably the greatest player in the world, was injured in the 3rd quarter forcing him to exit the game and slowly limp to the locker room.
It looked bad. It looked like an Achilles injury and many speculated that’s exactly what it was because when Durant felt it, he looked back thinking someone kicked him in the back of the leg – exactly what Kobe Bryant did when he tore his in 2014.
Bryant looked back at Harrison Barnes and asked the former Golden State Warriors forward, “did you kick me?”
Fortunately for Durant and the Warriors, the MRI revealed it to be a mild calf strain but he was at least done for the series. Even with the two-time consecutive Finals MVP going out; Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green rallied for the game 5 victory putting them up 3-2 in the series.
The Warriors were big underdogs for game 6; having to play in Houston without Kevin Durant, it was the biggest underdog point spread for this team in five years.
Nearly every analyst picked the Rockets – only a rare wise few picked the Warriors to closeout on an away game – to not only win this game, but to win the series if Kevin Durant couldn’t play.
But the second half was the two-time MVP of the league Steph Curry’s show in the second half. He put on a show scoring all 33 of his points after halftime with 23 of them in the 4th quarter – outscoring the entire Rockets team single-handedly.
The Warriors closed the Rockets out in game 6 when nobody thought they would and the team’s enthusiasm that they did it without Durant was infectious.
Curry exclaimed to Green on the way back to the locker room “kick me off the court again, boy!” They slapped hands hard and embraced.
Nobody knew what Curry meant by that but there’s a story behind it.
On the eve of Friday’s game, the Warriors were already in town and Curry asked the team manager, Eric Housen, to schedule a shooting session between 7-8pm at the Rockets’ Toyota Center so he could work on his shot.
Curry offered to stick to half court but Paul wasn’t having it and kicked him out of the Toyota Center altogether. Apparently, Rockets players get seniority with the arena.
That’s why Curry screamed “kick me off the court again, boy!”
Chris Paul has a longtime feud with Curry and after the Warriors star won his first championship CP3 whined to his friend LeBron James as if there was supposed to be a pecking order for players winning championships.
Paul has always been petty with his ridiculous flops and his constant outraged delusional attitude towards referees when they don’t call fouls that never occurred, but this was a disgusting display of sportsmanship.