This was really plain to see. His aggression and ability to finish inside was really poor compared to his FG% from 0-3 feet in the regular season, which had been 75% - that's DeAndre Jordan-level elite finishing.
He cops it more than anyone around here for being soft, or for not wanting to be there. But the fact of the matter is he missed the birth of his first son to be with the team, and compromised his health even further by doing so. Much respect to Gordy
I think your second paragraph really hits home for me. After last night's game, the general narrative on here seems to be that we're a very soft team, with Hayward getting the brunt of that criticism, as you said. What Hayward did for us this series is the farthest thing from soft. A "soft" person would have been like "Adios, team! I'm gonna kick back and relax to heal my injury. Perfect excuse to be with my wife and newborn son."
I think people were frustrated that Hayward couldn't give us more, but I haven't heard him blamed for last night - at least not in the top 5 reasons. 1) Theis had the worst game of his career, 2) Smart jacked up ridiculous 3s at inopportune times, 3) Kemba and Smart were constantly getting burned on the perimeter for easy lay-ups, 4) Tatum did not come to play from the start for the 3rd night in a row, 5) While MIA was attacking us in the 4th, we took lazy 3 after lazy 3, and a bonus #6), Brad totally let the team down at the end of a must-win game in fantastic fashion. We were just absolutely waxed.
See, at least 5 or 6 reasons above Hayward being mediocre. We all knew he did what he could; unfortunately it just wasn't enough. Best to him this offseason - I really do appreciate that he gave it a go with being injured and missing the birth of his son.
I'm more talking about the general criticism of Hayward being soft, which gets perpetuated here and a lot of other places; although I did see some of that criticism in the game thread last night too. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with people criticizing his play in games. I do that quite frequently with our players
. Attacking someone playing through an injury when he could be with his newborn child by calling them soft, is just a baseless attack on his character imo.