Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving played nine minutes against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday before exiting the game in the first quarter. He did not return. The reason? According to the team Irving was suffering from "flu-like symptoms"—a euphemism usually reserved for players a team wants to rest or guys that got a little too turnt the night before. But Irving said after the game that neither was the case. Find out the real reason here.
Take a swift journey through Thursday night's NBA action in The Fast Break.
Take a gander at the Top 10 Plays from Thursday's action in the NBA.
The Los Angeles Lakers need to make sure they are giving their young point guard as many minutes as possible.
The Memphis Grizzlies should probably go small next season, and they would have to trade Zach Randolph to do so.
Doug McDermott has seen his role expand in his sophomore season with the Chicago Bulls. McDermott can definitely do that—he's shooting 43.1 percent from deep after shooting an amazing 45.8 percent from outside in his four years at Creighton. One thing people didn't expect to see so much of when he got to the pros? Thunderous tomahawk jams in defenders' grills. Like this one over the Washington Wizards' Markieff Morris from Wednesday night. Injured wing Jimmy Butler's reaction is the best.
Stephen Curry dropped 51 points on the Orlando Magic on Thursday night, and at times it seemed like he was incapable of missing a shot. He was even able to knock down this buzzer-beater from half-court like it was no big deal, which was one of his nine 3-pointers made.
Orlando's Aaron Gordon didn't let a tough matchup with Draymond Green get in his way on Thursday night. Gordon dropped 19 points and eight rebounds against Golden State, and added this monstrous slam along the way.
James Harden is a polarizing figure. Unless you ride for him or his Houston Rockets chances are you'd rather not watch the Beard and his foul-drawing approach to scoring. But no one would have hated Harden more than this cameraman who while in a particularly vulnerable position just barely missed taking Harden's foot the groin. Not even inches from some real trauma it's nice to see the two were able to share a laugh after avoiding the unthinkable.
Now that the Brooklyn Nets have parted ways with Joe Johnson, he's free to sign with a new team.
In absolutely unsurprising developments, James Harden reportedly wanted Kevin McHale fired as the Houston Rockets' head coach.