Kevin Durant injury could shake up Western Conference playoff race
LOS ANGELES — If anybody can feel the Golden State Warriors’ pain, to truly understand how a team’s hopes of reaching maximum potential can be dashed with one bad turn of a limb like the one that has sidelined Kevin Durant for at least four weeks, it’s Mike D’Antoni.
Long before the Houston Rockets coach was working in this basketball bliss, his team far exceeding expectations by currently sitting third in the Western Conference, he had experienced both sides of this NBA reality. His Lakers teams were doomed by health problems, with Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard and Steve Nash never healthy long enough to do any real damage before he resigned in May 2014. His Phoenix Suns teams were quite different, mostly healthy in ways that led to stunning regular season feats but sometimes doomed by ill-timed injuries in the postseason along the way (see Joe Johnson’s broken face in May 2005, among others).
“Stuff happens,” D’Antoni, whose Rockets were in town to face the Los Angeles Clippers, said in a matter of fact manner. “That’s why you try to set yourself up with the best seed you can get, and try to get lucky also at the same time. (The Durant injury) doesn’t affect us, what we’re trying to do. You hate it for the individual, but that’s going to happen.”
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Durant’s Grade 2 MCL sprain in his left knee, suffered Tuesday night in Washington, will be re-evaluated in four weeks. The Warriors (50-10), who entered Wednesday just four games ahead of San Antonio and 8 ½ ahead of D’Antoni’s Houston Rockets, will now run the risk of losing their top spot in the West while trying for the second consecutive postseason to keep an injury from derailing their title aspirations (last year it was back-to-back MVP Stephen Curry playing this part). What’s more, a Warriors decline could lead to a second-round matchup between the Rockets and Warriors that, before Durant was hurt, most assumed would not be happening.
Now make no mistake, no one in NBA circles is playing the violin for these Warriors. They’re hardly the only elite team dealing with these kinds of challenges, for one, with the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers chief among that group (J.R. Smith has been out since late December with a thumb injury; forward Kevin Love had knee surgery in mid-February and was expected to miss six weeks). Secondly, pity from NBA rivals is pretty hard to come by when you manage to stack your roster with superstars like these Warriors did last summer when Durant joined the team that had gone an unprecedented 73-9.
“They still have three All Stars on their team,” Rockets star James Harden said of his former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate. “Hopefully he can get healthy as soon as possible. Obviously, we’re all praying for him. They’re still a good team. We just have to focus on what we have to do, how we can get better and put ourselves in a really good position going into the post-season.”
But this Durant development could prove to be a game-changer. He is an invaluable piece to their current puzzle, not only because of his across-the-board production (25.3 points, 8.2 rebounds, 4.8 assists per game) but because of his impressive defensive prowess this season on the team that currently boasts the second-best defensive rating in the league. The Warriors have 22 games remaining – 12 at home and just 10 against teams that currently have a winning record – and a healthy Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and all the rest to carry them through.
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For D’Antoni’s part, he’s simply hoping these Rockets can be luckier than the Warriors from here until the end. In Harden, he has one of the game’s most durable stars, a 27-year-old who has played in at least 73 games in all but one of his seven previous seasons (and all 61 games this season). In the Warriors, he has a reminder that it’s not always the best team that wins, but the healthiest.
“Yeah, we had that in Phoenix a little bit,” he said. “If you look back, when we had that big-time regular season (2006-07 season in which they went 61-21, then lost in the conference semifinals to San Antonio), a lot of that was because I think Steve played 76 (games) and he might have been the worst of the group."
“Then Amar'e (Stoudemire) plays 80 games, and Joe Johnson never missed a game, Shawn Marion never missed a game, and when you have that, obviously your record will reflect it. It’s easier to keep the continuity and build a good team.”
Follow USA TODAY Sports' Sam Amick on Twitter @sam_amick.