2:57 pm: The Warriors have confirmed that Curry has a quad contusion and muscle strain, announcing (via Twitter) that he’ll be reevaluated in one week.
10:46 am: The Warriors expect Curry will miss about a week “or a little more,” sources tell Slater and Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link). The sense is that Curry has avoided a serious injury, but his return will depend on how the quad responds to treatment, Charania adds.
Based on that timeline, Curry figures to miss Saturday’s game vs. New Orleans and Tuesday’s matchup with Oklahoma City, but should have a chance to return during a three-game road trip that begins next Thursday in Philadelphia.
7:52 am: After checking out of Wednesday’s game vs. Houston and limping to the locker room with 35 seconds remaining, Warriors star Stephen Curry has received an initial diagnosis of a right quad contusion, writes ESPN’s Anthony Slater.
Curry will undergo an MRI to confirm whether that diagnosis is accurate and to determine the severity of the injury.
The two-time MVP was in clear pain after a pair of fourth-quarter collisions, Slater notes. Curry was knocked to the floor while defending Amen Thompson with 3:24 left in the game (video link via NBA.com), then ended up on the court again less than a minute later when he drove to the basket and was called for an offensive foul (video link).
Head coach Steve Kerr told reporters after the game that he was relieved the injury was to Curry’s quad rather than “an ankle or a knee,” but he admitted that it would present a challenge for the Warriors if their leading scorer has to sit out at all. And according to Nick Friedell of The Athletic, the sense in the locker room was that the injury will likely cost Curry at least a couple games.
“If Steph has to miss [time]?” Kerr said, per Slater. “It obviously changes everything — our rotations, how we’re playing, who we are playing through. We’ll see.”
Curry was one of two guards who exited Wednesday’s game early due to an injury. The Warriors announced during the second half that Gary Payton II, who played five minutes in the first two quarters, wouldn’t return to action due to a sprained left ankle.
The Rockets ended up pulling out a 104-100 victory, with the Warriors falling to .500 (10-10) as a result of a fourth loss in their past five games. Veterans Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green expressed frustration in their post-game media sessions with the way the team has been playing, especially on defense.
“We don’t box out,” Butler said (Twitter video link via Slater). “We don’t go with the scouting report. We let anybody do whatever they want — open shots, get into the paint, free throws. It’s just sad. … A lot of our hustle is dictated upon our offense. When we’re making shots, oh man, we’re celebrating, we’re cheering, doing all of those things. When we’re not or when the game’s not going our way, we put our head down and we mope and then we don’t box out, we don’t get back, we foul. We do all the bad things.”
When informed of Butler’s criticism of the defense, Green interjected to reply, “Our defense is s–t,” despite the fact that the Warriors technically rank in the top 10 in defensive rating.
“It’s not necessarily the numbers,” Green said (Twitter video link). “How do you feel when you out there? It’s just letdown after letdown. It’s bigger than the numbers. Defense is about demeanor. If there’s letdown, it kills your demeanor, it kills your bravado. Then you’re just a soft team.
“… It requires individuals – all of us as individuals – to take on your challenge,” Green continued. “If you take on your challenge, then we can make the team thing work. The only way the team’s going to work is if we take on individual challenges. We are individually – I know everybody likes to twist words – I said WE are individually f—ing awful.”
Kerr playing vets 30+ min’s and getting nothing from Kuminga, might be a reason he doesn’t have a contract extension. He’s looking more like the BB of basketball.
Thompson, Sheppard and Smith played more mins than any Warrior. Kerr is bad at his job.
Actually, the extension decision is his to make. Dunleavy has the contract has on the table for him to sign.
A 1 or 2 year extension of an existing deal is trivial to do. It hasn’t happened because one or both of the parties doesn’t want to.
Kerr and Dunleavey have both publicly said they want to do a deal, and also have both publicly said they’ll wait until after the season to work out the terms (how many years, annual pay, etc).
If the season goes well, Kerr will be back and kumbaya.
But, obviously, if it goes badly, all that goes out the window and there will be major changes. Nobody expects an unsuccesful team paying 80% of its payroll to players over 36 years old to be better next season. How that would unfold is impossible to say.
Kerr started 3 guards, and “somehow” Reed Sheppard produces a career high 31 pts and 9 rebounds as the Warriors give up 25 offensive rebounds.
And the refs’ disrespect of Steph was exposed yet again – only 4 ftas after getting grabbed, held, and banged all game long, including the (obviously wrong) blocking call shown in the link as Thompson puts his shoulder into Steph’s chest and then falls on him somehow being a shooting foul, and then with much less initiation of contact getting called for the charge soon after.
That said, the Warriors died by the three, 2-21 in the 2nd half was the ballgame.
3 guards who dont play defense because they only know how to play SG but are getting told to play SF or PF.
> Kerr started 3 guards, and “somehow” Reed Sheppard produces a
> career high 31 pts and 9 rebounds as the Warriors give up 25
> offensive rebounds.
Agree that we’re out-rebounded because we’re too small. But playing 3 guards is not an excuse for not being able to defend Reed Sheppard, who is an SG/PG. Like Jimmy Butler said, “we can’t stay in front of anybody”.
Let’s be honest. A bigger problem is that none of Steph, Moody, and Richard are athletic enough to defend quick guards, and none of them are quick or long enough to defend the 3. The same is true of Podz.
We know that Steph is increasingly limited defensively. Will Richard will never be big or quick enough to be a starting NBA shooting guard. Moody will always lack lateral mobility — you can play him at the 2 or 3 only if you have a big, athletic wing that can be the primary defender.
Hopefully, JK and Melton will help when they return, but I’m not optimistic that Kerr will give up small ball.
not sure how you call that a blocking foul when thompson did a football block on curry even extending the shoulder?
Every single game we have to watch Curry get assaulted every game makes me disrespect and despise SGA even more. Such a disgusting dichotomy in this league. Rigged. Steph should get 20 FTs a game if we use the SGA whistle. Instead he gets covered in his own blood by scrub, dirty defenders with long nails.
Pro sports leagues in the USA are all putting Texas/OKC #1, its so weird. MLB even talked about pushing the Rangers and Astros back in the late 2000’s and then they won titles a few years later. In every sport, Texas/OKC teams are all frauds and cheat via umpires/refs favoring them. Sick of seeing Texas/OKC teams with no aura win.
2way scrub Pat Spencer gunna get 48 minutes, watch Kerr do this…
Another day another Davey J tantrum. I’m not even going to lie. Makes me all fuzzy inside. Predictable yet still enjoyable. It’ll only getting from worse from here pal. All the years of talking rubbish coming back to bite you. Popdz time to shine while Steph is out. Podz and his heat seeking backboard breaking missiles.
“Podz and his heat seeking backboard breaking missiles.”
lmao this part of your snide, rude, comment was great. Not sure why you despise me so much though, I am merely an NBA fan of an NBA team, being a fan. You get off on my suffering? Why? Im a Warriors fan, my team stunk for the first 30 years of my life. I know pain just as bad as anyone. You seem to forget this.
Love that you got 7 upvotes from my usual haters though, love that for you! Hope you got warm fuzzies from seeing others in pain. I never have said anything like that on here before, but do you, lil bro! You sure live a valid life and definitely don’t live in your mom’s basement, lil guy! Have a great thanksgiving, enjoy your fruitcake!
When Curry wins #5, you will delete on here and never post again, right? Because I will be very happy when that happens!
Time for Davey boy to change that name again IMO.
@ Davey J…..wow. what’s thanksgiving? What’s a basement? And just wow, again.
GSW’s time is over. Time for a rebuild, i guess?
It has been over even with Butler move he isn’t a young player. Anyone really think they can beat SAS, Hou,Den, and OKC 4 out of 7 times? as they would play 2 of those 4 at minimum.
You both are probably right, but you can’t count them out if you look at last year.
Everyone was saying the same thing but they beat the Rockets and then were on their way to handing it to the wolves also.
Unfortunately, the Warriors are an older team so if guys go down, that’s the end of it.
We might see guys go down again this year, but it’s definitely not over if they can maintain health.
That’s probably a 50-50 proposition, but I don’t think you tear it down and rebuild just yet with the possibility of what they can do with this roster.
They showed it last year. You have to admit that.
I say you clearly give this one more shot unless what I said at the beginning of the year comes about.
That would be a scenario around the trading deadline where they are 10 games under .500.
Then you trade Greymond and the rest of them, whoever has value.
If the warrior sit at .500 or one game under, two games under like the deadline last year, you have to go for it.
There’s no other way to look at it.
Dubs had one of the easiest schedule after acquiring Butler and their record with him reflects that. They did what they had to so and they played who they were scheduled to play. It was fools gold as they only an old team with veterans that are already at its ceiling. Curry aint at his prime anymore, Draymond is a step or 2 steps slower and cant guard anyone bigger than him which is majority of the Western conference. Butler is happy as he already got his bag but what you see is what you get and he aint a shooter that Curry needs. Kuminga is young and athletic but he wants to be the man when he is just a kid. And no, Giannis aint walking that door to wear dubs gold.
Dubs furthest they can go is 2nd round at best but realistically with all them injuries, I wont be surprised to see them fighting for a play in spot.
Dubs were cruising to the WCF before Steph tore his hamstring, all your statements are lies. Pure slander. Just don’t post if you have to lie to make your point. A truly pathetic take all round, laughable analysis. YDKB.
@MogaBalls
As far as the easy schedule claim, that’s not true, over half the teams on their schedule since the trade had winning records.
Gary despises the Warriors and only loves Kerr and his son. His takes don’t carry water when they are all negative.
@GaryRSW
The problem with the “we proved it last season” narrative is that most of the teams in the West got better, and at 10-10, it’s clear that (so far at least) the Warriors got worse.
NBA OK.., Yes, I agree but as I said, at .500 the Warriors have an active trade deadline and get better.
Again, if they’re 10 games below .500 break it down.
If we manage to beat the Pelicans again, we’ll be 11-11 after OKC crushes us in the following game.
Then another 3 games in 4 nights road trip @76ers, Cavs, and Bulls, with a stop in Phoenix on the way back, and most likely no Steph for all of them.
The record could easily be 11-5 at that point.
“11-15”
Plain and simple idiotic to call anyone’s season in November. Kerr just has to play a regular 5 man lineup and not 4 SGs and 1 C.
Never EVER make calls like this in November. In Nov-Jan Dubs have been wildly inconsistent every single year except KD era.
Waive Rowe and Santos
Sign Wiseman and sign Santos to a two way contract. Develop Richard at PG
Man let’s count some of the excuses read on this site recently for why the Warriors are currently a play in team.
1. The schedule is too hard
2. We don’t play enough bigs
3. Podz plays too much
4. Kerr isn’t getting enough out of Moody & Kuminga, who apparently both have the talent to be all stars.
5. The opposition players are too mean to Steph
6. The refs are against us and are for OKC. That’s probably why they’re 18-1
But don’t worry everyone. I’m sure all those things will fix themselves and Giannis is chomping at the bit to join a team with a 500 record.
“The opposition players are too mean to Steph”
Nope, the opposition players foul Steph and never get called on it. If you have eyes you can see this. Total and pure lies. Grow up.
It’s November. Everyone should shut up and just enjoy the games. Evaluate teams in January, when you are supposed to.
Pure hating, pure talking about posters on here, not NBA takes. You are worthless to discourse on here. Shut up lil bro, you dont know ball. MUTED.
Get the kleenex lol. Biggest crybabies on HoopsRumors …..
I think I got bingo.
Got called a hater, a liar, lil bro, don’t know ball and got told to grow up. Also hilariously got told to shut up and enjoy games. How ironic.
Getting trashed by the Davey J is a compliment lol. He is the FankenStein of Warrior fans.
Kerr is right, better it’s a quad than ankle or knee. He needs rest. And they should give him plenty of. No need to rush him back. Time for the bench to show up. Really can use Melton now. Playing an older roster means there can be nagging injuries all year. The bench has to play. This is the bench you signed.
Get well Steph …….
Never fear. Jimmy Buckets is here y’all.
They can defend so much better than they did last night. That second half was embarrassing.
The defense wasn’t the problem, they held the Rockets to 39%/35% shooting in the 2nd half. It was shooting 2-21 from three in the 2nd half that lost the game.
Maybe the rockets D was better than the Dubs D and that’s what explains the % discrepancy? That’s what it looked like to this viewer. All Dubs shots contested. HOU was getting wide open threes.
Maybe the issue inside the warriors is the 3 amigos relationship between Stephen, Stephen and Draymond? Stephen Kerr is a kooky coach who probably will retire with Stephen Curry and draymond has 1 role on 1 team. The more they trade pieces in and out, the results stay the same. They should trade Kuminga+picks to Dallas for Unibrow Davis and Klay. Last Dance. Then Dallas could trade Kyrie and Gafford to LA for Reaves+picks. LeBron’s last dance + Curry’s last dance. Make it happen.
At this point, I’d rather GSW go after Kyrie instead of Klay. What’s Klay gunna do? Play terrible defense and be washed up after his major leg injuries?
@aristotle
(I wish you’d use the other name that lets me reply directly, but anyway, wrt this):
“But playing 3 guards is not an excuse for not being able to defend Reed Sheppard, who is an SG/PG.”
Sheppard is going off against many of the Rockets opponents as he begins to fulfil his third pick in the draft status in year 2 this season, and Podz stayed in front of him and contested multiple times in that game, but Sheppard scored anyway. He’s up to 49%/46% shooting for the season, has shot over 50% overall in 8 out of their 16 games and scored 27 on 69%/63%/89% in Denver last week.
So GSW holding him to 48%/33% isn’t that bad, considering how poorly the rest of the Rockets shot. The Rockets lowest score before this game was 109, so 104 is decent defense.
But a team like GSW that relies on 3 pt shooting bricking 2-21 (9.5%) in the 2nd half is usually going to lose.
You are going to have to open another account to be able to reply to Aristotle, like I did.
I actually agree with all of your points there. If Curry, Post, Moody, Richard & Buddy don’t go a combined 6-30, they win. They usually will, unless Kerr keeps going small and provides no blocking and has too many cooks out there at the same time. In which case, they will continue to lose.