Draymond Green Believes Tyrese Haliburton's Injury Draws Kevin Durant Parallells

Draymond Green believes Tyrese Haliburton's injury draws Kevin Durant parallells originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

After a thrilling 2025 NBA Finals came to an anticlimactic end upon Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton’s torn Achilles in Game 7, Warriors forward Draymond Green noticed a parallel to one of Golden State’s own playoff runs.

During an episode of “The Draymond Green Show,” the 2017 Defensive Player of the Year drew a comparison between Haliburton’s injury and Kevin Durant’s torn Achilles in Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals against the Toronto Raptors.

“I do send my love and well wishes to Tyrese though just on a speedy recovery, leaving it all out there on the floor, you know,” Green told co-host Baron Davis. “These Achilles/calf injuries are tough, I put it on my Threads account as soon as it happened, “Man, that looks too familiar.” NBA Finals, elimination game, guy get to cooking, cooking. KD got to cooking, and so I just wish him well and a speedy recovery.”

As Warriors fans remember, Durant took the court in Toronto with Golden State facing a 3-1 deficit despite nursing a calf strain that had held the former NBA MVP out since Game 5 of the 2019 Western Conference semifinals against the Houston Rockets.

Durant famously started out Game 5 against the Raptors on fire, dropping 11 first quarter points, including a perfect 3 for 3 from beyond the arc, before hitting the floor early in the second quarter with a torn Achilles, a bitter end to an otherwise glorious chapter in a Warriors uniform.

One year ago, Kevin Durant made his heroic return in Game 5 of the NBA Finals before tearing his Achilles.

He had 11 points in the first quarter before the injury. pic.twitter.com/TziRJPntJ6

— ESPN (@espn) June 10, 2020

Haliburton, like Durant, started Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals on fire, draining three shots from beyond the 3-point line before succumbing to the same ill-fated injury as Durant.

Tyrese Haliburton went down with an injury in Game 7. pic.twitter.com/AZ1uk65dFg

— ESPN (@espn) June 23, 2025

With a recovery timeline that typically lasts well over a year, it calls to reason what the Pacers’ ceiling will be during the 2025-26 NBA season as Indiana’s star rehabs. If you ask Green, it’s a tough ask to expect a team even as talented as the Pacers to make another deep playoff run next season without Haliburton.

“It’s tough, man. We obviously had Klay [Thompson] go down, KD went down, but he left,” Green explained. “Same year Steph went down, it’s tough — You’re not winning without your best player in this league.You can put together a decent season, but it ain’t happening.”

Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast