Stephen Curry didn’t play during the Golden State Warriors’ Game 2 matchup against the Houston Rockets. Which is fine. Because Golden State didn’t need him.
Short on their normal dose of three-point shooting, the Warriors blitzed the Rockets inside the paint and in transition, gutting out a 115-106 victory sans the soon-to-be two-time MVP. It was a win worthy of the message it delivered: that the Warriors don’t need Steph to win this series.
That might be a good thing, too. The severity of Curry’s ankle injury isn’t clear. That, or it hasn’t been made public just yet.
Either way, head coach Steve Kerr refused to double down on anything following Game—including Curry’s actual injury and his status for Game 3, per ESPN.com’s Ethan Sherwood Strauss:
Kerr says, "I don't know," then "both" when asked if it's a foot or an ankle problem for Curry. "It's something down there"
— Ethan Strauss (@SherwoodStrauss) April 19, 2016
Curry appears to be taking a slightly different approach, telling USA Today‘s Sam Amick that he will plan on playing until those plans change:
“I thought I was good (to play) tonight, so my word is not very good on that front,” Curry told USA TODAY Sports after his Warriors downed the Houston Rockets 115-106 without him on Monday night at Oracle Arena to take a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference first-round series. “I’m going to approach (Game 3 in Houston on Thursday) like I’m playing for sure.”
Kerr made it clear during his postgame presser that Curry’s long-term health would take precedence over this series, perhaps even his championship run. And that’s obviously smart. Curry is only 28 years old, with a lot of basketball left in front of him. The Warriors can survive without him for now. They could realistically make it through to the Western Conference Finals, irrespective of whether they’re facing the Los Angeles Clippers or Portland Trail Blazers. They do, however, need him in the lineup to be great—to be the fully functioning best-ever cadre that steamrolled the rest of the NBA this season.
For now, you can only hope that this is a pointless conversation. That Curry will be back in Game 3. That he will return to the floor at all, even if it’s not this series. Whether you’re a Warriors fan doesn’t matter. Curry is a spectacle himself. The playoffs are much more interesting with him on the floor, healthy and firing away at will.
