Warriors Need Steph Curry Back Sooner Than Later
At some point, Stephen Curry will be back on the floor for the Golden State Warriors.
It could be as soon as Monday night, although head coach Steve Kerr says that's doubtful. It could be later this week, if Curry's injured right knee feels strong enough.
Whenever it happens, the Warriors must be absolutely sure he's good to go and not at risk of reinjuring the knee. Now that the Portland Trail Blazers have won a game and made the second-round matchup a series, Golden State won't have as much time to get Curry back up to speed as a sweep would have afforded them.
How they handle the next week with the reigning MVP (and soon to be two-time winner, per ESPN.com's Marc Stein) could decide their season.
Whether he plays in Monday's Game 4 or Wednesday's Game 5, working Curry back in is going to be anything but seamless after playing all but two halves of the postseason without him.
He hasn't seen game action in over two weeks and didn't exactly look healthy during the half he played of Golden State's Game 4 win over the Houston Rockets on April 24, when he suffered the MCL sprain after injuring his ankle in Game 1.
There's going to be an adjustment period for him, and for his teammates.
How Curry and the Warriors navigate that reacclimation period is crucial, because the Warriors aren't getting to the Finals without him. They can win two more games against the Blazers, but the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder are too deep and too talented.
Through four games, the Spurs and Thunder are tied 2-2 in the only second-round series that has thus far lived up to expectations.
The Spurs' strategic brilliance and versatility of rotation can give any team fits. With Curry in the lineup, they have tough decisions to make about covering him—in their four regular-season matchups they tried Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green, with mixed results. Without Curry to worry about, the rest of Golden State's offense becomes a lot easier to lock down.
The Thunder played the Warriors the closest of any contender during the regular season. In Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, they have two superstars capable of taking over a game at a moment's notice, as Durant did Sunday night in the Thunder's win over the Spurs. Curry is a similar threat for the Warriors; nobody else is (unless Curry is playing).
Against the Blazers, everyone else will be enough. Against the Spurs or Thunder, not as much.
Blazers head coach Terry Stotts said before Game 3 that he'd believe Curry was out when the lineups were released pregame. The same goes for Game 4 and beyond.
But when the Warriors do give Curry the green light to play again, it needs to be because he's 100 percent, not because an unexpected loss in Portland put pressure on them to bring him out as some kind of trump card against a team that isn't on their level.
The degree to which his mere presence changes the way opponents guard the Warriors is obvious. As deep as the Warriors are, they're a lot easier to solve when everything doesn't revolve around a superhuman shooter who's a threat to pull up from half court.
But if Curry is only 80 percent of his normal self against the Spurs or Thunder, the defense will figure that out quickly and make the rest of the team beat it.
The Warriors are deep enough that they can do that in spurts, and they do—Draymond Green is capable of taking over a game at both ends of the floor, even if he isn't nearly the three-point threat Curry and Klay Thompson are.
Blazers guard C.J. McCollum said so himself after Game 3, and it speaks to the nearly unsolvable threat Curry poses to any team facing him—a threat that simply isn't there when he's not on the court.
After Saturday's loss, Green vowed that he, and Golden State's defense, would be better.
"When I look at this game, I thought it was my worst game of the series," Green said, per Erik Gundersen of the Columbian. "37 [points], nine [rebounds], eight [assists], two turnovers. That's cute. But I didn't do what I do for this team. I don't feel like I led my troops tonight. I felt like I was horrendous on the defensive end."
If the Warriors' history is to be looked at as an indicator, Monday's game will be a statement that they are, in fact, still in charge in this series. On Saturday, the Blazers became the first team this year to beat the Warriors twice (they got them during a February meeting during the regular season too), and the Warriors have yet to lose two games in a row.
They're cognizant of that, and you can bet they aren't ready for a losing streak to start now.
If Curry's knee is up to it, the ideal scenario for the Warriors would involve a return at home Wednesday.
If the Dubs can pull out a road win Monday and take a 3-1 series lead back to Oracle Arena, Curry will have had over two weeks to recover from the knee injury. Playing in that game would give him a full game to get back up to speed, and closing out the series in five games still gives him plenty of time to rest before the Western Conference Finals, now that the Spurs-Thunder series is going at least six.
Until Curry sets foot on the floor and we see how he looks, all this is guesswork. His health remains the biggest wild card of the postseason—something that can swing the Warriors from being another very good team back to the prohibitive title favorites.
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