I have been holding my breath watching him all season with falls and collisions. But it was definitely Tari. Or Patrick Beverley after the whistle.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7233072/2026/05/02/kevin-durant-rockets-playoff-disaster-future/ The knee injury that kept Durant out of Game 1 against the Lakers was a fluke accident, with one of the team’s two-way players bumping knees with him in practice as they both went for a loose ball.
from the athletic article: "Last season, the Rockets were a young, scrappy team on the rise that surged to the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference. But their youth caught up to them in the first round of the playoffs, as the veteran Golden State Warriors upset them in a rock-fight seven-game series. After spending months sending signals that they wouldn’t accelerate their timeline by trading young stars to chase Durant, the Rockets changed course and acquired the former league MVP last summer. The goal: Add elite scoring to their ferocious defense and compete for a title right away." the problem of course, is they traded away their most ferocious defender to acquire an elite scorer. the team equilibrium (and vibes) shifted considerably.
