Warriors acting head coach Mike Brown told reporters, including Mark Medina of NBA.com (Twitter link), that Otto Porter Jr. will miss Friday’s Game 6 against the Grizzlies. Porter had previously been listed as questionable with right foot soreness.
Brown said he’s contemplating tweaking the rotation with Porter sidelined, with more minutes for Kevon Looney, Jonathan Kuminga and Nemanja Bjelica, Medina tweets.
As Anthony Slater of The Athletic observes, Porter’s absence is a major loss for the Warriors, as he’s been a key cog of Golden State’s best lineups against Memphis. In the second-round series, the Warriors are +45 in Porter’s 106 on-court minutes, and -55 in 134 minutes without him (Twitter links).
In 63 regular season games this season, Porter averaged 8.2 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.1 steals on .464/.370/.803 shooting in 22.2 minutes per night. Those figures seem relatively modest, but the 28-year-old forward is a good rebounder, smart defender and has a high basketball IQ. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent this summer.
In other Warriors news, Tim Kawakami of The Athletic reports (via Twitter) that head coach Steve Kerr, who’s currently in the league’s health and safety protocols, might miss Game 7 if the Grizzlies win tonight. The Warriors currently lead the series 3-2, so it’s an elimination game for Memphis. Kerr still needs to return two negative COVID-19 tests prior to making his return, but he’s been actively involved in creating game plans via phone and video calls, Kawakami notes.
Worse than that the same terrible crew from game 1 is officiating the game tonight so there goes the home court advantage when James Williams the Memphis fan Ref is back calling as many fouls on GSW that he can. I have a bad feeling about this game No Kerr and lost Brown coaching. Its going to a game 7.
Fitzgerald is going to call 2 quick ones on Dray and Klay. I bet within 6 minutes
its Williams that will be calling the fouls. In the first game he got mad when the warriors challenged a call then argued with the 2 other Refs who was going in Warriors favor. He also did not call the out of bounds at the end of the game with 4 seconds even though he was 2 feet away from the play.
Light fouls double standard
First half
Warriors 9 fouls
Grizzlies 6 fouls
Small Warriors have 70 rebounds
Big Grizzlies have 44 rebounds
Are you writing a haiku or trying to make a basketball point? Hard to tell.
I google it
Referee James Williams was born in Memphis
Warriors are in deep trouble
I’ll post bad calls here
Porter was one of the guys I mentioned they have in the matchup now that would help them, so this is a big deal, but Bjelica was also one of those guys, and he hasnt played, so we’ll see what lineups they put out there.
Hey Morey… OPJ would have been an ideal wing depth piece. Take some notes.
He is a free agent
Congrats to the Warriors, the best team won.
D. Brooks can return to his off-season thug life.
Looney is underrated.
If Looney plays 35 minutes in Game 2, Warriors would have won the series in game 4.
Looney plays 10 minutes a game = nothing