Stephen Curry has carried the Golden State Warriors through uneven stretches before, but the team’s latest bump comes with a twist, as their 10-10 squad will now have to figure things out without him for a little while.
Late in the fourth quarter of Wednesday night’s 104-100 loss to the Houston Rockets, Warriors guard Stephen Curry left the floor limping, and his team announced that he sustained a right quadriceps contusion.
An MRI is scheduled for further evaluation, but all signs point to a roughly one-week absence.
Shams Charania of ESPN reported that Curry is expected to “miss around a week or a little more,” the timeline hinging on how his quad contusion reacts to treatment.
The 37-year-old has been his usual engine so far, putting up 27.9 points, four assists, and 3.7 rebounds per game while shooting 47.1 percent overall and 39.1 percent from deep in 16 outings.
“The Golden State Warriors anticipate Stephen Curry will miss around a week or a little more with a quad contusion suffered Wednesday night, sources tell me and Anthony Slater.
He’s believed to have avoided any serious issue,” Charania wrote on X. “Return will depend on how quad responds to treatment.”
Curry‘s injury arrived in the closing moments of the Warriors‘ 104-100 loss in Houston, the kind of grinding game Golden State used to escape on muscle memory alone.
The moment he headed off the floor, concern spread quickly until the medical update eased some of the tension.
The ripple effect for Golden State
For Steve Kerr, the diagnosis mattered almost as much as the timeline. According to Anthony Slater, the head coach could almost exhale once he heard where the injury landed.
“When I heard it was a quad, I was actually relieved. Better than an ankle or a knee,” Kerr said, per Reuters.
Curry‘s exit came with 35.2 seconds left on the clock, near the end of a game already slipping away from the Warriors. He finished with 14 points, and his departure ended a string of three consecutive 30-plus point games.
Now his absence changes everything. The Warriors‘ movement-heavy offense depends heavily on his presence on and off the ball. Without him, spacing shifts, tempo drags, rotations get scrambled, and different players are asked to drive possessions that normally run through No. 30.
Curry‘s presence affects spacing, pace, and the very identity of the Warriors‘ offense. Without his gravity on the floor, Golden State may struggle to generate open looks or impose their usual tempo.
“If Steph has to miss [time]?” Kerr said. “It obviously changes everything – our rotations, how we’re playing, who we are playing through. We’ll see.”
Read the full article here
