One of many massive tales forward of Recreation 4 between the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday revolved round Golden State’s beginning lineup. The Warriors rolled with JaMychal Inexperienced in back-to-back video games after he made only one begin throughout all the common season however, with Golden State shedding Recreation 3, phrase started to leak that Steve Kerr can be tweaking the lineup. Finally, he determined to insert Gary Payton II into the lineup and go together with a smaller group, however Payton II really left the sport in the midst of a play throughout the first quarter.
Apart from uncertainty round why Payton II left the sport, it could’ve been noteworthy, however maybe unremarkable, that he exited, particularly since Payton II returned to the bench quickly after. Nonetheless, his absence was magnified when Draymond Inexperienced uncorked a cross that ended up being caught by Lakers assistant coach Phil Useful for a turnover — who advised Inexperienced “nice cross!” as he caught the ball.
Inexperienced’s response was considered one of sheer confusion, seemingly as a result of he assumed Payton II was going to be there for the swing cross. As you possibly can see from the broader angle on the video, the Warriors have solely 4 gamers on that aspect of the ground, and Inexperienced is the uncommon participant who actually could have merely thrown a cross to the place Payton II ought to have been, moderately than merely searching for him.
Including to the confusion was that there wasn’t something obvious that occurred to Payton (resulting in loads of hypothesis on Twitter as to why he left the courtroom abruptly), however he was again on the bench shortly after and appeared able to re-enter the sport.
It was a weird second in a rocky first quarter for the Warriors, as they trailed 22-21 in a sluggish offensive begin for each groups.
UPDATE: A Twitter sleuth appears to have discovered what occurred to Payton, because the Warriors wing seems to have thrown up in his mouth, held it for a complete defensive possession, after which jogged off the ground.
That may be a legitimate purpose to not run again down the ground!
