MINNEAPOLIS — Stephen Curry isn’t sure how long it will take for him to recover from his Grade 1 left hamstring strain because this is the first time he has ever had such an injury.
Calling the situation a “gut punch,” Curry said he has to be careful and can’t rush his comeback given the “tricky” nature of hamstring injuries.
“This is new, and from all that I’m learning about how quickly you can get back, there has to be a healing process,” Curry said at Warriors shootaround Thursday before Game 2. “You can’t accelerate it more than what it’s telling you. So it’ll be one of those, after a week, really reevaluating every day to understand when it’s safe just to even think about playing, let alone how much can you push it.”
Curry is out through at least Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals and will be reevaluated after that. Game 5 is eight days after Curry suffered the injury. Then there is a three-day break before Game 6, if necessary, which could give Curry a total of 12 days to recover. Game 7, if needed, will be May 20.
Curry said he is “a little ways away from” taking stationary jump shots. He said the rehab process right now is “a lot.”
He said there were no warning signs before he suffered the injury in the second quarter of Game 1 on Tuesday. He could be seen grabbing at his left leg and signaled to the bench to come out but remained in the game for 29 seconds before play was stopped.
“I felt great the whole game up until that point,” Curry said. “And then I made a little pivot move on defense and felt something, didn’t think it was nothing or anything. I felt like I could just go get it released and be able to come back out. But with soft tissue, stuff like that, it was one of those situations I could have done more damage if I tried to go back out. So obviously a tough break, but hopefully I’ll be back soon.”
He said the Warriors’ 99-88 win gave him and the team confidence that they could stretch this series and even win it.
“There is a great vibe in our locker room in terms of them trying to hold the fort down,” Curry said. “We have a lot of confidence that we can still win the series, and guys step up no matter how it looks. And it’s obviously a situation where you want to think positively and optimistically that we can win games and buy me some time to get back and stretch, hopefully have another series after this and be able to be in a position where I can get back out there safely where I’m not putting too much risk on the body if it’s not ready.”
The Warriors have played 12 playoff games without Curry during his career and have gone 9-3. This will be their first without Curry since Game 1 of the 2018 Western Conference semifinals against the New Orleans Pelicans, when he was out with a knee injury. The Warriors had Draymond Green and Klay Thompson for all 12 of the previous games, and Kevin Durant for six.
Curry, 37, said sitting out now is much harder and more emotional than when he was younger. He isn’t sure how many more opportunities he will have for a deep playoff run. That is why Curry told Green the night that the Warriors traded for Jimmy Butler in early February, “This is it. It’s our last ride,” in talking about their championship window this postseason and the next two years with Curry, Green and Butler under contract.
“Fight through the last two months of the season, a hard first round that you get through a Game 7,” Curry said. “The way that we were playing, and I was playing individually, that first half, I was starting to feel really, really good about where we were at, and then you kind of get a gut punch like that. So it was really emotional at first.”
Curry was asked if there will be a point where he will have to fight the urge to come back early to help his team.
“There will eventually be conversations like that,” Curry said. “I’m not even anywhere close to that right now, so I’m not rushing it because there has to be a natural healing process that happens and the body will tell you even if you’re able to do normal basketball movements, pain-free and all that stuff.
“And I know how tricky hamstrings can be where they can fool you and think that it’s healed even if you don’t feel anything. And so that gray area is a little, will be confusing I’m sure, but I’ll do everything in my power to get back as soon as possible.”
Curry said he doesn’t know what the bar is for him to clear for return because he has never had a hamstring injury before.
“If it were my ankles or anything else, I’d be able to tell you pretty quickly,” Curry said. “I know a set date I’ll be good. This one, I have no clue, so I’m not trying to put any expectations other than I want to feel better each day as I go. Obviously working with [Rick Celebrini, Warriors VP of player health and performance] and his expertise on doing everything that we can to get me back out there as soon as possible. That’s the mission. And then whenever that time comes, I should have all the answers.”
