Following the conclusion of their 106-101 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies in Game 2, the Warriors announced that Gary Payton II suffered a fractured left elbow.
The severity of that fracture will not be revealed until he undergoes an MRI, but it’s an injury which could potentially, if not likely end his season.
He suffered the injury on this brutal fall after a flagrant 2 foul by Dillon Brooks which saw Brooks ejected.
Steve Kerr was furious with the play. He called it “dirty” in a mid-game interview with TNT and expanded on his answer after the game, expressing disdain for Brooks’ foul.
“I don’t know if it was intentional, but it was dirty,” Kerr said. “And playoff basketball is supposed to be physical. Everybody’s gonna compete. Everybody’s gonna fight for everything. But there’s a code in this league. There’s a code that players [follow] where you never put a guy’s season/career in jeopardy by taking somebody out in midair and clubbing them across the head, ultimately fracturing Gary’s elbow.
“This is a guy who’s been toiling the last six years trying to make it in this league, finally found a home, just playing his butt off this year. In the playoffs, this should be the time of his life and a guy comes in whacks him across the head in midair. He broke the code. Dillon Brooks broke the code. That’s how I see it.”
Kerr was asked exactly what the line is and what determines breaking that unspoken code.
“The line is pretty clear,” Kerr said. “You don’t hit a guy when he’s in midair, club him and break his elbow. That’s where the line is.”
There was no love lost from either Stephen Curry or Draymond Green.
“It was kind of out of line in terms of a defensive player going up for a layup and him taking a huge wind-up,” Curry said. “Everything bad that could’ve happened in that situation did.”
Green leaned into the physicality and antagonistic energy of the series, calling the play a “bullshit foul.”
He said he reveled in the moment where he was elbowed in the face and flipped off the Memphis home crowd, then flexed, saying he can afford to pay the fine that comes with it.
“You’re gonna boo someone who got elbowed in the eye and his face is running down with blood, you should get flipped off,” Green said. “So I’ll take the fine. I’ll do an appearance and make up the money. But it felt really good to flip them off… I could have had a concussion. So if they are going to be that nasty, I can be nasty too.”
The Warriors should announce the severity of Payton II’s injury on Wednesday. They’ll have a three-day rest period until they continue the series in San Francisco on Saturday night.
