Basketball fans had every reason to expect Game 2 of the Rockets-Warriors Western Conference semifinal series to be ugly, with the Rockets working the officials in embarrassing fashion and franchise enemy Scott Foster assigned to the refereeing crew. But this was not the start that anyone imagined!
What at first looked like James Harden selling incidental contact in the paint was in fact Harden reacting in pain to having had his eye poked by Draymond Green. This was no joke—Harden had to go back to the locker room, and Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni reported that Harden’s eyeball was bleeding, which frankly makes me want to vomit. Harden’s eye looked red and sore when he returned to the court, but return he did:
That wasn’t the only grody injury from the first quarter, and it wasn’t even the most grody injury from the first quarter. Steph Curry managed to dislocate the middle finger on his left hand, and you know what that means—disgusting zig-zag finger alert!
Steph, too, was able to return to the game—trainers relocated (?) and taped up his nightmare finger—and ripped home a signature three at the end of the quarter:
It’s a dangerous scene out there in Oakland tonight. Just wait until the injury bug finds its way to Chris Paul’s hamstrings. Oh buddy.