SAN FRANCISCO — Golden State Warriors star guard Stephen Curry has a right quad contusion and will have an MRI, the team announced after Wednesday’s 104-100 loss to the Houston Rockets. Curry initially appeared to indicate an injury to his lower body after a collision with Rockets big man Alperen Şengün with about 4:25 left in regulation after trying to run through a screen.
Curry stayed in the game before an extended conversation with Warriors director of sports medicine and performance Rick Celebrini during a timeout in the final seconds. Celebrini appeared to look toward the Warriors bench and inform the coaching staff that Curry was done for the night. Curry, looking dejected, hobbled back to the locker room with Celebrini to be evaluated.
“It obviously changes everything,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said of Curry’s injury. “Our rotations, how we’re playing, who we’re playing through, so we’ll see. When I heard it was a quad, I was actually kind of relieved, better than an ankle or a knee. So hopefully he can recover quickly and be OK. But we got to hold down the fort.”
The Warriors have to hope that Curry’s MRI does not show a significant injury, but the general feeling within the locker room late Wednesday night was that they would be playing without their leader for at least a couple games at a minimum.
“I think we’re gonna have to be damn near perfect,” Warriors forward Jimmy Butler said of potentially playing without Curry. “We ain’t going to have the ultimate bail out on our team. Even when he is on the floor, we’re going to have to do our job because we make the game real difficult. As great of a basketball player as he is, he has a really hard job every single day if he’s got to be the Batman of all Batmans and save us every night. That ain’t what he’s here to do.”
Warriors emotional leader Draymond Green said the group would need to limit its turnovers without Curry, agreeing with Kerr that “everything” would change.
“We can’t turn the ball over and we can’t give up offensive rebounds,” Green said. “You got to start with that, because you got to give yourself some way to make up all of those points, so start there. Take care of little s— you can take care of. And then you figure everything else out from there.”
The Warriors have Thanksgiving off before returning to practice on Friday. Their next game is Saturday night at home against the Pelicans.
