Kawhi Leonard and Nick Nurse both downplayed the Toronto Raptors star's health concerns after a Game 4 shellacking of the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference Finals. However, Leonard was clearly gimpy throughout the game, and veteran wing Danny Green admitted his longtime teammate is playing through pain.
Via Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated's The Crossover:
“He’s playing through pain,” Danny Green said to a handful of reporters, long after Leonard left the locker room. “He can’t even celebrate baskets because of how painful it is. You dunk on a guy like Giannis and you are worried about your knee, it shows you that he’s fighting. We’re going to need him to fight through the rest of this series. We need two more.”
Leonard seems to be dealing with a right leg issue. While he still turned in a solid effort, he clearly wasn't at his best in Game 4, going for 19 points, seven rebounds, four steals and an assist in 34 minutes. His teammates picked him up, though, as Kyle Lowry had another terrific game and the bench finally came alive after struggling for much of the postseason.
Leonard has put Toronto on his back for a good portion of the playoffs, so it was great to see his teammates return the favor as he fights through the pain. The star forward came under fire last season for how he handled his right quad injury, and Green thinks Leonard's efforts now help illustrate how serious that injury was, and how tough Leonard really is:
“It was a year later and it was still something that he had to manage throughout [this] year,” Green said. “For good reason. Now he’s playing a ton of minutes and as you see, some of it still lingers, is still coming back. It’s an injury that you have to be very careful with and it just shows you that he would fight through it if he could, and he is doing it now.”
Leonard is going to continue to fight through this injury and not make any excuses about it. Even with Leonard not totally healthy, the Raptors are in prime position to reach the NBA Finals after tying up this series at two games apiece.
Follow Us
Subscribe