Warriors’ Stephen Curry laughing off injury report
Stephen Curry took to the NBA Finals news conference dais Sunday with an ice pack the size of a linebacker’s pads strapped to his right shoulder.
“I can’t even keep a straight face for whoever said I needed shoulder surgery and all that other stuff,” said Curry, whose team leads the best-of-seven series against Cleveland 3-1.
Curry missed time in each of the postseason’s first two rounds with ankle and knee injuries, and he endured a nasty knot on his right elbow during the Western Conference finals.
A Los Angeles Daily News report Sunday, quoting an unnamed source, said Curry consulted a Southern California orthopedist and an MRI exam showed “issues with both shoulders, as well as his knees, some of which may require surgery this summer.”
Cleveland head coach Tyronn Lue was fined $25,000 for publicly criticizing the officials after the Cavaliers’ 108-97 loss in Game 4.
“He never gets calls,” Lue said of LeBron James, who has 17 free-throw attempts in the NBA Finals — three shy of series leader and teammate Kyrie Irving.
James was not fined for saying: I’m not quite sure what I can do to get to the free-throw line, but I’ve got to continue to be aggressive for our team.
The most ardent supporter of Draymond Green’s “retaliatory swipe to the groin area” of James in Game 4 was TNT analyst Charles Barkley, who went on Bleacher Report Radio before the league announced its suspension of Green.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr played in 1992-93 in Orlando, where 50 people were killed at a packed nightclub early Sunday in the deadliest shooting spree in U.S. history.