Sunday June 20th 2021
Drama und Durants “big ass foot”
One shoe size eliminates the super team
Needed by David
Pure drama: Giannis Antetokounmpo and his Milwaukee Bucks throw the super team of Kevin Durant and Co. out of the playoffs. The Brooklyn Nets hit the final throw, but Durant’s toes hit the line of three. It’s not enough to win.
It’s the toes on the left foot. You make the difference. With a score of 107: 109 in the final seconds, Kevin Durant hits an incredibly difficult throw from distance after turning around his own axis for his Brooklyn Nets against the Milwaukee Bucks. But because his shoe just touches the three-point line, the NBA superstar only gets two points instead of three points. The decisive seventh game (it is 3: 3 in the semi-finals of the Eastern Conference) goes into overtime with 109: 109.
A shoe size smaller – and Durant would have hit a threesome and Brooklyn sent the Bucks home. But as it is, Milwaukee struck back in overtime to the Greek superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo. Both teams were standing knockout, Durant was on the floor every 53 minutes of the game. In the end, one of the superstars’ throws was defended so well that he threw an airball – and Antetokounmpo dramatically defeated the Nets with 115: 111. In the final of the East, the Bucks will now face either the Philadelphia 76ers or the Atlanta Hawks.
Injuries and form crisis
“My big ass foot stepped on the line,” cursed Durant after the game. “My damn big foot stepped on the line,” he was about to say. The approximately 2.11 meter tall Durant wears shoe size 53 in his spare time. On the floor, however, he even plays in size 55 shoes. A decision that may have cost him and his team participation in the final of the Eastern Conference. At least that’s how many fans discuss the crucial minutes of this seventh game on social media.
The real reasons for the out of the Nets were the injuries in the team, which was built into a super team within two years: Playmaker Kyrie Irving was out with a broken ankle for the last three games against the Bucks. Before that, teammate James Harden was injured. After his return, “The Beard” did not find its way back to its old form, it could be seen that the muscle in the thigh held, but was not fully resilient. The poor throwing form of three-man specialist Joe Harris also put a damper on Brooklyn in the final game: his ten points in only three of nine throws hit from behind the three-point line were too few.
Durant, however, had convinced with an incredibly strong series. In the seventh game he was again the best thrower of all players with 48 points (record for most counters ever in a Game 7). The former Warriors forward had only returned this season from a ruptured Achilles tendon that had put him out of action for a full season, and had regained dominance in the playoffs. Commentators and experts called Durant the best basketball player on earth right now – with feet a little too big for this big moment.
.
