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Raptors fans are taking heat for cheering Durant's injury

Rob Williams
Rob Williams
|
Jun 11 2019, 1:07 pm
Raptors fans are taking heat for cheering Durant's injury
ESPN

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Game 5 didn’t go the way Toronto Raptors fans imagined.

Instead of lifting the Larry O’Brien Trophy as NBA champions, the Raptors lost 106-105 and have to go back to Oakland for Game 6.

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Raptors fans, meanwhile, are taking a lot of heat on social media for how many of them reacted to Kevin Durant’s injury early in the second quarter.

Playing his first game in over a month, Durant fell to the floor with an achilles injury. A significant number of fans in attendance at Scotiabank Arena cheered as Durant limped to the sidelines.

It didn’t last long, as fans quieted at the encouragement of Raptors players. Classless cheering then turned to respectful applause as Durant left the court, before a “KD” chant broke out.

But the damage was done. There’s no excuse for the initial reaction.

Warriors players were still pretty angry after the game.

“It was bullsh*t. That was freaking ridiculous,” said Klay Thompson. “I can’t even put into words how mad I was about that.”

“That’s just unreal. Classless. Just classless,” added Draymond Green.

Steph Curry, who is no stranger to Toronto, offered some perspective.

“I’m very confused around that reaction,” said Curry. “It’s not my experience with the people of this city. I commend Danny Green and Kyle Lowry especially, I think they were the ones that were kind of signalling to the crowd ‘let’s check ourselves a little bit.’

“Understand that this is about a human being, and not ‘oh shoot, he’s out, he’s hurt, we won the championship.’ That was probably the initial thought.”

“I just hope that ugliness doesn’t show itself again.”

Meanwhile, Raptors guard Kyle Lowry was giving his fan-base the benefit of the doubt.

“I don’t think the fans knew the significance of the injury,” Kyle Lowry told reporters after the game. “In this league, we’re all brothers. You never want something like that to happen.”

Look, not all Raptors fans reacted inappropriately, but enough of them did to make this a talking point. It’s what happens when you get an emotionally charged fan-base in Game 5 of the NBA Finals that so desperately wants their team to win.

Did many of them get caught up in the moment? Sure. Were some of the drunk? The game started at 9 pm ET, so of course! Was there a part of the crowd that didn’t realize how serious the injury was? Perhaps.

Still, Raps fans will have to deal with the repercussion, in this case, online shaming.

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