For an audience watching on national TV, seeing Dante Exum hop on one leg to the locker room was alarming.
For a Jazz fan base who has seen the 22-year-old deal with far more than his fair share of injuries, it was crushing.
Exum left midway through third quarter of Game 4, limping and hopping on his right foot even as he took a corner 3-pointer. He managed to get into the tunnel, where cameras showed him falling to the ground as training staff crowded around him.
It was an unfortunate ending to one of Exum’s best playoff games of the season: The Australian point guard had nine points on 4 of 6 shooting in 10 minutes.