James Harden Exits with Injury; Nets “Heartbroken”!

It only took 43 seconds for the tenor of the Eastern Conference semifinal showdown between the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks to be turned on its head. Continue on for more on James Harden Injury…

CelebnSports247.com reports Brooklyn Nets star guard James Harden is out for Game 2 against the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday with what the team is calling “right hamstring tightness.”

As it stands now, the expectation is for the Nets to see how his hamstring responds over the next several days.

Nets coach Steve Nash said on Sunday:

[Harden] has high hopes and he wants to be back ASAP. Now, I think we want to protect James, too. We want to make sure he’s right.

This is playoff time. This is time to take some risks, but it has to be right to take those risks — we’re not going to take any old risk. So, we hope he’s back. He believes he can be back. But, we’ve got to see what happens and only can time can tell how he responds.

According to ESPN:

The play that Harden appeared to injure himself on was fairly unremarkable — a simple drive against Bucks guard Jrue Holiday. But when he lobbed a pass, Harden landed and came away from the play grabbing his right hamstring. Harden eventually left the court and struggled as he walked back to the Nets’ locker room.

A team spokesperson told ESPN that Harden left the arena shortly afterward to go get an MRI on his hamstring.

Kevin Durant, who had 29 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Nets to the win

KD said:

I didn’t realize what had happened until he had started walking off the court, but we supposed to run [a] play and he wasn’t in his spot, and I looked at him, he was grimacing. It just sucks. It sucks. It sucks because I want him to be out there.

I know how much he cares. I know how much he wants to be in this moment. It sucks. Wishing him a speedy recovery. Keep him involved as much as possible. It’s just a bad break.

The Nets are still waiting on Harden’s MRI results…