Golden State Warriors guard Moses Moody had to be stretchered off the floor on Monday night after he went down with a gruesome knee injury on what should have been an easy breakaway dunk.
Moody, in overtime of the Warriors’ 137-131 win over the Dallas Mavericks at the American Airlines Center, stole the ball and had a dunk ahead of him with about a minute left on the clock. But right after Moody planted to jump up, he bailed on the dunk completely and reached down for his left knee.
Moody crashed down to the court under the rim, holding his left knee, as play went the other way. The Warriors’ bench reacted horribly to the injury, and athletic training staff ran over to help Moody and cover up his knee once play ended on the other side of the court.
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He was eventually stretchered off the court. He finished with 23 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists.
Further specifics of his injury are not yet known. Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said after the game that Moody was getting X-rays, but that was all he knew. Moody was on crutches with a knee brace moving very slowly in the locker room. He will fly back to the Bay Area with the team and get an MRI on Tuesday.
“We don’t know what it is, but it sure looked bad,” Kerr said, via The Athletic’s Nick Friedell.
Moody has averaged a career-high 11.9 points and 3.3 rebounds per game this season, his fifth in the league. The 23-year-old, who the Warriors selected with the No. 14 overall NBA Draft pick in 2021 out of Arkansas, returned to the court on Monday night after missing 10 games with a wrist injury.
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The Warriors finished out the six-point win from there, but they were clearly distraught by Moody’s injury the rest of the way. The win snapped a three-game losing skid, and eliminated the Mavericks from playoff contention. The Warriors now sit at 34-38, which has them in 10th in the Western Conference standings with 10 games left in the regular season.