The baby face assassin can breathe a relative sigh of relief as he avoided major injury.
The Golden State Warriors announced on Friday that the glue to their team, Stephen Curry, who departed Thursday night’s 117-114 win against the Toronto Raptors after taking a hard tumble in the third quarter, had a clean MRI with no structural damage, and will miss the beginning of the team’s upcoming six-game road trip.
The Warriors are calling Curry’s injury a pelvic contusion, and he will not travel with the team to their Saturday night game against Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks. He will be reevaluated on Monday.
The injury occurred when Curry attempted to drive to the hole, and as he made a pass back out to the perimeter, he inadvertently got knocked onto the floor by Raptors rookie Jonathan Mogbo. He landed directly on his tailbone, and after writhing on the floor in pain for a moment, was able to walk back to the locker room under his own power.
Curry was quickly ruled out for the remainder of the game, and immediately following the 3-point victory, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said that while he did not have an update on his star point guard, Curry, like the competitor he is, did want to try and come back to play down the stretch in the fourth quarter.
“He was trying to come back. He thought he might be able to come back, and we just decided not to risk anything. Hopefully it’s not bad,” Kerr said according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic.
Embed from Getty ImagesFortunately for Kerr and the Warriors it sounds as though Curry will not miss a significant period of time. Since Golden State acquired Jimmy Butler from the Miami Heat, Curry’s been on a tear. He is averaging 26.5 points a night, and the Warriors have gone 12-2 since the trade deadline, pushing them out of the play-in and within two games of the No. 5 spot in the Western Conference. They are still only 1.5 games ahead of the Los Angeles Clippers who sit in 7th place behind them, but a favorable road trip, even without Curry’s services, should give Golden State some much needed breathing room.
The biggest tests will come on April 1against Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies, who hold that No. 5 spot in the West, and April 3 against the Los Angeles Lakers on the road at Crypto.com Arena. However, given that Curry is being reevaluated on Monday, he could return for those matchups.
His partner in crime, Draymond Green said in his post-game press conference, it was a “scary moment” when Curry went down.
“He hit that ground hard,” Green told reporters after the Warriors’ win. “You could hear it. It was crazy. Obviously a very scary moment for us, for him. Hopefully he’s good.”
The other thing to keep an eye on with Curry’s status going forward is he needs to play in at least five of Golden State’s 12 remaining games on the schedule to remain eligible for end-of-season awards such as the All-NBA Teams. If this injury does not sideline him longer than expected, he should get there. Curry, averaging 24.2 points and 6.0 assists per game on 39.4% from 3-point range over the course of the season, has a strong All-NBA case.
This injury is not the end of the world for the Warriors, who have found their championship level groove since trading for Butler. His addition relieves some of that offensive pressure off of Curry and only elevates and strengthens Golden State’s top 10 defense. With Curry out for potentially the next few games, the Warriors will need Butler to step up on the offensive end to carry some of that load.
