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Amen Thompson’s Previous Dirty Moves Resurface After Jimmy Butler Injury

Andy Nesbitt

Amen Thompson collided with Jimmy Butler which led to the Warriors star leaving the game with an injuy.
Amen Thompson collided with Jimmy Butler which led to the Warriors star leaving the game with an injuy. / Logan Riely/Getty Images
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The Golden State Warriors lost Jimmy Butler to a painful injury in the first quarter of their Game 2 loss to the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night, and his status for the rest of the series will be better known after his MRI on Thursday.

Butler was injured when Houston's Amen Thompson fell into him while Butler was going up for a rebound. At first, it looked like Draymond Green might have pushed Thompson into Butler, but the more you look at the replays, the more it looks like Thompson just fell into Butler.

Whether or not it was a dirty play is up for debate. Shortly after the injury occurred, a video showing some dirty moments from Thompson in his young NBA career started going viral. There was one play where he grabbed Giannis Antetokounmpo by the face on a hard foul. There's one where he threw the Heat's Tyler Herro to the ground during a scuffle. And there was one that saw him getting ejected for hitting Maxi Kleber with a hard elbow.

Thompson was called for a regular foul on Butler and stayed in the game.

Game 3 of this series is Saturday night in San Francisco. We'll have to wait and see if Butler will be available for that one.

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Andy Nesbitt
ANDY NESBITT

Andy Nesbitt is the assistant managing editor of audience engagement at Sports Illustrated. He works closely with the Breaking and Trending News team to shape SI’s daily coverage across all sports. A 20-year veteran of the sports media business, he has worked for Fox Sports, For the Win, The Boston Globe and NBC Sports, having joined SI in February 2023. Nesbitt is a golf fanatic who desperately wants to see the Super Bowl played on a Saturday night.

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