MINNEAPOLIS — Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry will miss at least one week after he was diagnosed with a Grade 1 left hamstring strain suffered in Game 1 of the team’s playoff series against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday.
Curry underwent an MRI on Wednesday and will be reevaluated in one week, the Warriors said. While the team did not give an exact timeline for his return, it will be based on how he responds to rehab for the first muscle strain injury of his career, sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania.
“I think you literally just take it a game at a time,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said Wednesday. “And we can’t. … I know there’s a [three-day] break between [Games] 5 and 6 and everyone’s saying maybe those three days [perhaps Curry returns then] … we can’t afford to think about that.
“I mean Steph will be back when he’s back. We just focus on tomorrow’s game and then we go from there.”
Curry suffered the injury during the second quarter of the Warriors’ 99-88 Game 1 win. After he scored on a driving 14-foot floater with 8:48 remaining in the second quarter, he could be seen grabbing at his left leg. He signaled to the bench to come out but remained in the game for 29 seconds before play was stopped. Curry then walked straight to the locker room and was ruled out shortly thereafter, finishing with 13 points in 13 minutes.
With only one day off between each game from Game 1 to Game 5, Curry is slated to be out through at least Game 4 on Monday. A potential Game 5 on May 14 would be eight days after the injury. Then there’s a three-day break before a potential Game 6 on May 18, and a Game 7 would be May 20.
“We’re in that room right now talking about how we are going to approach it,” Kerr said. “What the lineups will look like. It’s all part of it. Every year, the playoffs are about adapting whether it is a game plan or an injury or lineup. We just have to adapt. We have done this before and we are confident we can do it again.”
The Warriors are 9-3 in 12 playoff games without Curry. But this will be the first time they play a playoff game without him since Game 1 of the 2018 Western Conference semifinals against the New Orleans Pelicans, when he sat out with a knee injury. In the 12 playoff games without Curry, the Warriors had Draymond Green and Klay Thompson. Kevin Durant played in six of them.
“I think the difference at that time, we had an all-time NBA roster,” Kerr said after the Warriors won Game 1. “So those days we were well-equipped to handle the loss of Steph.
“… But there is a lesson, I mean you have to understand what it takes to win a game without your best player. And [Game 1] was a good indication of that.”
Kerr said he won’t need to give the team a “win one for Steph speech” before Game 2. The Warriors will feel that sentiment given how much Curry means to the franchise.
“That’s just a given,” Kerr said. “Everyone loves and respects Steph so much, and he’s the reason that this whole run has happened. I mean there’s been plenty of contributions and I would say the same thing about Draymond and Klay, and there’s a lot of key people who have driven this thing. But when it comes down to it, this is about Steph, this whole thing. He’s like Tim Duncan in San Antonio, Michael Jordan in Chicago. None of it happens without Steph and everybody knows that. The whole team understands that … it’s going to happen on its own. The guys they want to do it for him. Nobody has to say that.”
Winning Game 1 gives the Warriors more belief that they can do so again without Curry. Kerr cited the team’s elite defense, which held Houston to 89 points in Game 7 and Minnesota to 88 points in Game 1, both on the road.
“We know what he’s done,” guard Brandin Podziemski said of Curry on Wednesday. “The amount of things he’s done for our group throughout the year, throughout these years, for this organization, everything he’s kind of gave to this team. We know we have his back, he has our back.
“We’re just going to put our best foot forward, and we know we can win with whoever’s out there.”
Minnesota forward Jaden McDaniels said Wednesday that the Timberwolves will have to make-believe that Buddy Hield — who led Golden State with 24 points, going 5-for-8 from 3 in Game 1 — is Curry on the court and guard him accordingly.
“I know when we play teams without their best player, we kind of struggle sometimes,” McDaniels said. “So just treating Buddy like Steph, not letting him have a game like he did last game … trying to just shut his water off.”
McDaniels added it would be “kind of easy” to shift to covering Hield instead of Curry.
“Just because Buddy kind of does the same as Steph, he just shoots a lot of 3s,” McDaniels said. “I wouldn’t say he’s as good as Steph, but he’s like Steph. I just kind of treat him how I guard Steph. Just not giving him no space. Basically being his shadow.”
ESPN’s Dave McMenamin contributed to this report.
