Kevin Durant went down, and people cheered, and they shouldn’t have. He was playing, and he shouldn’t have been. The Toronto Raptors could have won a championship but didn’t, despite Durant’s injury, which was a horrifying thing, an Achilles injury, the nightmare. The winning players were as sombre as the losers, and the winning general manager was fighting back tears. Golden State won Game 5 of the NBA Finals 106-105 to stay alive in the series, and everyone had regrets.“He was cleared to play tonight; that was a collaborative decision. I don’t believe there’s anybody to blame, but I understand in this world and if you have to, you can blame me,” said Bob Meyers, Golden State’s general manager, in a lengthy opening statement in which he had to keep from crying. “I run our basketball operations department. And to tell you something about Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant loves to play basketball, and the people that questioned whether he wanted to get back to this team were wrong.“And I’m not here to — he’s one of the most misunderstood people. He’s a good teammate, he’s a good person, it’s not fair. I’m lucky to know him. I don’t know — I don’t have all the information on what really the extent of what it all means until we get an MRI, but the people that worked with him and cleared him are good people, they’re good people.”Read more: Raptors splash down in Game 5 loss to Warriors Warriors star Kevin Durant limps off after Game 5 return against Raptors Shock sets in for Raptors fans after Game 5 loss Maybe the medical risk was deemed acceptable by qualified professionals. You have to think so. But Kevin Durant had a calf strain and had scrimmaged just once and shouldn’t have played. He came back to a series that was almost lost when he didn’t have to, with free agency looming. Credit to him, but someone clearly should ha ...
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