Klay Thompson optimistic about playing in Game 2 while recovering from ankle injury

The injury that Klay Thompson sustained during Game 1 of the NBA Finals with was diagnosed as a high left ankle sprain and has reportedly required ongoing treatment since the conclusion of the thrilling overtime win.

As Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports reported first, it looks like Thompson will be able to play in Game 2 on Sunday, but later reports suggest we should be thankful for the back-to-back days off.

Anthony Slater of The Athletic tweeted out video from today’s media availability and reports that Thompson is “optimistic” about playing in Game 2, but probably wouldn’t be able to play if the game were today -- since Game 1, he described experiencing swelling and stiffness in addition to the bruising originally reported.

In Slater’s video below of Thompson walking to his media availability session, you can signs of a limp as well as some discomfort.

There were a fair number of people on Warriors Twitter upset with the play Smith made on Thompson that caused the injury and a fair number who thought it might be intentional. However, Slater reported that although Thompson is “pissed”, he doesn’t exactly feel as though it was an intentional effort to injure. As Tim Kawakami tweeted during Game 1, it might be best described as “reckless...but accidental.”

With former Finals MVP Andre Iguodala already listed as doubtful for Game 2, this could put the Warriors in a somewhat precarious position should neither he nor Thompson be available to play — they’d still have a talent advantage, but their wing rotation would be extremely thin with Patrick McCaw also recently returning from injury and playing just 3:34 in Game 1, which required overtime to decide.

For now, we can just hope that Thompson recovers in time to play so we can avoid the headache of worrying about the Game 2 rotation — you know he’s born for this.

Click here for more on how Thompson sustained the injury during Game 1.

Update (4:03 p.m.): Klay Thompson has officially been listed as “questionable” for Game 2, according to the Warriors PR Twitter account.