Did Raptors fans really cheer when Kevin Durant got hurt?

When Kevin Durant went down with a right calf injury, it seemed as if the Raptors fans cheered when he left. Did they really, though?

Make no mistake, the Toronto Raptors fanbase is as rabid as any in the NBA, but we didn’t expect what happened in the early going of Game 5.

Kevin Durant, who got off to a brilliant start in his first game in 33 days, re-injured his right calf early in the second quarter. And when he went down, it sure seemed as if the Raptors fans were cheering for an injured player. The cheers/jeers were audible on the television broadcast and still images certainly seemed to capture some collective ugliness.

Maybe this was a cultural thing, lost in translation?

After looking over the play, one could very well come to the conclusion that Toronto fans weren’t really cheering on Kevin Durant, but the score on the other end. Maybe they didn’t realize he was hurt at first? However, things aren’t what they always appear to be, and if you rewatch the play, you’ll see a Raptors fan wearing a Marc Gasol jersey actually wave “bye bye” at Durant. And he wasn’t the only one who let his fandom get the better of him.

Judging from that, and you’ll come up with a different conclusion: That Raptors fans lost their mind for a moment and actually cheered an injured player. In fact, there were numerous fans that waved at Durant and not the nice wave at that.

It had to take the Raptors players and the Scotiabank Arena PR announcer to get the fans to realize that they were way over the line.

So the verdict?

We find the Raptors fanbase guilty of cheering Kevin Durant’s injury. Their punishment is for the country to swap their healthcare system with ours.