The Warriors have ruled out star guard Stephen Curry for Thursday’s game against the Lakers, according to ESPN’s Anthony Slater.
Curry returned earlier this week from a knee injury after sitting out for over two months, so Golden State is taking a cautious approach with its leading scorer and most valuable player. Slater had reported on Wednesday that the 38-year-old would likely be held out of one end of the team’s back-to-back set on Thursday and Friday. The fact that Curry is missing Thursday’s game means he should be back in action on Friday vs. Sacramento.
It also means that Curry and Lakers star LeBron James won’t face each other at all this season. James missed the first meeting between the two teams in the fall while dealing with sciatica and Curry missed the next two as a result of his knee injury.
We have more injury updates from around the NBA:
- The Celtics can clinch the No. 2 seed in the East with one more win, but they won’t be at full strength as they look to pick up that victory in New York on Thursday. Star wing Jaylen Brown will miss the game due to left Achilles tendinitis, the team announced (via Twitter). It’s the first game of a back-to-back set for Boston, though it remains to be seen whether Brown will be back in action on Friday vs. New Orleans.
- Jalen Green suffered a right leg injury early in the first quarter of Wednesday’s win over Dallas and did not return, writes Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. The former No. 2 overall pick wore a sleeve at halftime and warmed up to see how he was feeling prior to being ruled out. Fellow Suns guard Jordan Goodwin also exited Wednesday’s game due to a left ankle injury, which he suffered in the second quarter, Rankin adds.
- Although Heat wing Norman Powell said after shootaround on Thursday morning that he’s “feeling good” and will be active for tonight’s game in Toronto, he admitted his nagging right groin injury will likely linger until he gets an extended break for it to heal in the offseason, per Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. “When you have muscle strains and things like that, you can rehab and everything. But it takes time,” Powell said. “You just need rest, and I just feel like I need rest. I need time to let the body do what it needs to do. But even though I can get it to a certain point where it feels good, there’s no pain and everything, it doesn’t mean that it’s 100% healed. So then over time, an accumulated amount of stress on that area, then it starts to flare back up.”
- Second-year big man PJ Hall underwent surgery to address his right ankle fracture, the Hornets announced in a press release. The former Clemson star, who suffered the injury in the first round of the G League playoffs with the Greensboro Swarm, will miss the rest of the 2025/26 season.
Rory Maher contributed to this story.
Ok !!!! I like it. The Warriors aren’t as dumb as I look.
Sit the man, give him a rest, he’s old and needs to take a little break.
Play him 25 minutes in one game over the weekend and then don’t get too crazy next Wednesday.
Make sure Greymond starts against the Blazers and shoots a lot of threes. Maybe he’ll be a knucklehead, slap somebody or kick a dude in the nuts and get thrown out.
Then it will be the Bassey, Leon, and Spencer show the second half as the dubs cruise to a 9 point loss.
Lotto here we come !!
Rest him. The game has no meaning for the warriors. Play him tomorrow and rest his brother.
> The game has no meaning for the warriors. Play him tomorrow
> and rest his brother.
How does tonight’s home game against the 3rd place Lakers have less meaning than tomorrow’s away game at SAC?!
For one thing, Warriors fans buy tickets for home games, not for away games. I guess we don’t matter.
For another, Kerr has repeatedly said the purpose of these last games is to “sharpen” our play. The Lakers have some decent players, SAC does not.
Warriors played 4 G league players and 1 2way convert. Just face it Kerr wanted a tank game.
But you said that the SAC game had more meaning than than the Lakers game the night before at home, right?
Evidently, no games have any meaning.
Kerr said last week that he wanted to get the entire team prepared for the play-in by winning some games.
If Kerr “wanted a tank game”, as you say, then he was clearly lying last week about preparing for the playoffs. Mentally, GSW is preparing like a loser.
??? Where did I say that it had more meaning? I said to not play both at the same time. There are much alike in they are shooters and do not stand out on defense. So it makes no sense playing them at the same time on the floor. Kerr is testing out lineups for the play in. Curry and KP never played on the floor together. He also had KP and horford on the floor together because they have done it before to see if they play off each other. i don’t see them getting passed LAC unless they can get the defense together but at this point it doesn’t look like it will happen.
> ??? Where did I say that it had more meaning?
Look above, you said the following:
> Rest him. The game has no meaning for the warriors.
In any case, these games absolutely do have meaning. Kerr, Steph and Draymond have all said over the past week that they need to play like a playoff team and win games to be ready for the playoffs.
The play-in game is in only 4 days. Do they look like they’re hitting on all cylinders?
Still i never said the other game had more meaning did I? Of course not. None of these games have any meaning. That is just them saying what fans want to hear. If you saw the m lineups yesterday you could tell Kerr is just testing out how they play with each other.
The team looks like an early exit. There is 0 way they are even close to being ready. Curry leg was hurting last night. There is not enough talent to win in the playoffs. I rather see them lose in the play in than get sweep by OKC. portland is too athletic for them. LAC only hope against them if Leonard has a real bad game. Suns would need to have a bad shooting night for warriors to beat them.
> None of these games have any meaning.
> That is just them saying what fans want to hear.
Gotcha. You know they’ll do just as well in the play-in if they play zero “meaningful” games beforehand.
All those NBA coaches have been lying all these years about peaking at playoff time. Only stupid fans believe them.
The games mean something to some players that want to pad their stats. I will not say which player on a playoff team that played statrting minutes against 2 tanking teams when they should be resting. have you seen some of those lineups team are running out there this last week? Nuggets resting their core lineup. OKC rested their players. Some teams do not need to peak at the end of the season. Why risk one of your best players to get injured right before the palyoff in a game that means nothing.
> Why risk one of your best players to get injured
> right before the palyoff in a game that means
> nothing.
If the goal was strictly to preserve Steph’s health for next season, then GSW wouldn’t have brought him back to play only 4 games.
The truth is that GSW knows they need to show they can be relevant in future years.
Everybody in the organization had been hyping these last few games because after this disastrous. Losing makes ticket prices go down and prevents good players from coming here.
Nobody expects playoff wins, but this team has to show it does not suck. Other than the Houston game, our stars have been too old and unavailable to show otherwise.
There are us warrior fans in reality that the [play in will be 1 game and out watching how bad the defense is right now. I have a feeling its Curry that wants to play more than shutting him down. The play in game will be a test on who they need to keep for next year and who is gone.
Bron without Luka and Austin suiting up against the Mavs, skip the Thunder then suit up against the Warriors. Lmfao, the stat padding king.
I disagree.
A well-rested LeBron could help the Lakers beat the Warriors.
The only thing playing the Thunder would do is make sure that he wasn’t well-rested for the Warriors.