Game 2 of the Golden State Warriors' first-round playoff series against the Houston Rockets was chippy from the start with the Rockets looking to even the series on their home court.
Physicality was the name of the game on Wednesday night as the refs seemed content to let the players play for the most part. During one unfortunate play in the first quarter, Warriors' Jimmy Butler jumped up for a defensive rebound and was undercut by Rockets' Amen Thompson. Butler took a hard fall on the court and immediately went into the locker room; he was later ruled out for the rest of the game due to a pelvic contusion.
Some on social media thought Butler's own teammate, Draymond Green, caused the accident, as the zoomed-out video seemed to show Green pushing Thompson into Butler.
Jimmy Butler hit the ground hard after being undercut by Amen Thompson 😳 pic.twitter.com/Icd2wBF50U
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) April 24, 2025
But, a closer slo-mo replay revealed that Green was simply trying to box out Thompson in the paint. Thompson appeared to get his feet tangled up in the sea of legs and ended up barreling forward and crashing into Butler inadvertently.
From my POV it didn’t look like Draymond pushed Amen Thompson into Jimmy Butler but it ALSO looked like Amen was already falling before Jimmy was in the air. So let’s stop with the “dirty player” narrative pic.twitter.com/YyMP2mv4rp
— Trysta Krick 🔥 (@Trysta_Krick) April 24, 2025
No one to blame here, it seems. Just a very unfortunate basketball play.
Warriors star Steph Curry suffered a pelvic contusion similar to Butler's earlier this season and missed two games as a result. Butler will receive an MRI on Thursday and hopefully return to the playoff series as soon as possible.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Video Appears to Clear Draymond Green of Blame for Jimmy Butler's Hard Fall vs. Rockets.