Should the Rockets lose with Kevin Durant out with an ankle injury, will it be the last of him in a Houston uniform?
The Houston Rockets are looking for a win in Game 6 against the Los Angeles Lakers, and they’ll have to do it without Kevin Durant yet again as he was ruled out of the contest per ESPN’s Shams Charania. The star suffered a left ankle bone bruise back in Game 2 on April 21, which the Rockets went on to lose. He’ll miss a fourth consecutive game now due to this injury in a first-round series that is on the brink of being over without a win Friday.
Durant initially sat out of Game 1 with a bruised right knee tendon and returned for Game 2 in which he re-injured his left ankle late – not before putting up 23 points in 41 minutes. Sources tell ESPN that the injury typically requires two weeks of recovery, minimum, to return to play, making it a stretch for him to play in Game 7, should they make it there, on Sunday in Los Angeles.
However, if Houston doesn’t pull it off tonight, then it’s all moot, as they’re down 5-0 in the series. They did pull off an incredible comeback from a 3-0 series deficit, winning in spite of Durant’s absence in one of the more impressive runs in playoff history. But Friday could be the end of their campaign, and potentially, the era of Durant.
To read more about that potentially coming to a close, here is the full story from Rockets Roundtable writer Keysen Henderson.
Durant is in his first year with the Rockets, averaging 26 points, 5.5 rebounds and 4.8 assists in 78 regular season games, logging the second-most time in the NBA with 2,840 minutes. The 16-time All-Star and 2014 league MVP played a notably heavy regular season workload, raising what appear to be fair questions ahead of the postseason of that wear and tear on Durant.