Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors now find themselves in a similar predicament to last year’s Lakers and Nets. The two-time MVP suffered a left foot sprain late in the second quarter of a 110-88 loss to the Boston Celtics on Wednesday when Marcus Smart dove for a loose ball near Curry’s legs. Replays showed Smart making a play for the ball and Curry’s foot getting trapped under Smart’s lunging body.
While the Warriors haven’t issued a formal timetable for Curry’s return, ESPN reported that he could be sidelined until the start of the playoffs in mid-April. An extended absence for Curry would further complicate a challenging campaign for the Warriors, who have been forced to juggle lineups due to injuries to Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala and James Wiseman.
Curry has been Golden State’s steadying force, earning a spot in the MVP conversation by averaging 25.5 points, 5.2 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game while ranking second leaguewide in total plus-minus. Although he cooled down somewhat after a red-hot start, Curry’s memorable campaign saw him break the NBA’s all-time three-point record and score 50 points to claim All-Star Game MVP honors. Meanwhile, he helped the Warriors buy time during the latter stages of Thompson’s Achilles’ recovery and kept them afloat during Green’s recent absence due to a back injury.
It was no wonder, then, that Warriors Coach Steve Kerr was so incensed after Curry’s injury that he confronted Smart, a two-time all-defense selection known for hustle plays.
“I thought Marcus dove into Steph’s knee and that’s what I was upset about,” Kerr explained later. “A lot of respect for Marcus. He’s a hell of a player, gamer, competitor. We talked after the game. We’re good, but I thought it was a dangerous play.”
Smart defended his actions, arguing that he had acted without malice and expressing hope that Curry would recover quickly. Green, meanwhile, absolved Smart of any wrongdoing.
“I can’t call that a ‘dirty’ play,” Green said. “Maybe ‘unnecessary,’ but that’s the most that I can call it. The ball is on the floor and at every level of basketball we are taught to dive on the floor and go after the ball. That’s what Marcus did.”
The “dirty” debate is far less relevant than the terrible timing for Golden State (47-23), which holds the Western Conference’s No. 3 seed and finds itself in a tight battle for playoff seeding with 12 games to play. The Warriors have looked like an entirely different — and much, much worse team — when Curry has been sidelined, compiling an 83-49 (.629) record with Curry on the court and an 18-57 (.240) record without him over the past three seasons. In other words, Golden State has performed at a 52-win pace with Curry and a 20-win pace without him since Kevin Durant’s 2019 departure.
That disparity could spell real trouble over the next month. The Warriors enter Friday sitting one game behind the Memphis Grizzlies and three games up on the Utah Jazz and Dallas Mavericks in the loss column. While only four of their remaining games are against winning teams, the Warriors will face both the Grizzlies and Jazz. Should Curry remain sidelined for the balance of the regular season, Golden State will have a very difficult time keeping pace with Memphis and will have its hands full trying to maintain home-court advantage for the first round.
The most agonizing aspect of Curry’s injury is that it comes so quickly after Green’s long-awaited return. Indeed, Golden State’s star trio has been out of alignment all season. After Thompson missed the first two-plus months of the season due to his Achilles’ recovery, he returned with much fanfare on Jan. 9, only for Green to get injured during warm-ups. Green missed the next two months before coming off the bench in a blowout win over the Washington Wizards on Monday. Curry was lost to injury in the very next game.
For consolation, Golden State can look back to the 2017-18 season, when Curry suffered a knee sprain in March that sidelined him through the first round of the playoffs. Once he returned, the Warriors ripped off an 11-4 run to claim their third championship under Kerr.
Yet that group had Durant and, by extension, enjoyed a much greater margin for error. The current Warriors will struggle to replace Curry’s shot-making, ballhandling, on-court leadership and big-game experience. Continuity is often a deciding factor in the postseason, and Golden State’s core trio of Curry, Green and Thompson has logged just 11 minutes together this season. With well-oiled machines like the Phoenix Suns and Grizzlies looming, the Warriors, who have several new rotation players this season, may have no choice but to build chemistry and make adjustments on the fly.
After their recent blowout win over the Wizards, Green confidently proclaimed that Golden State was “going to win a championship” regardless of its playoff seeding. The former defensive player of the year sang a different tune following Curry’s injury.
“Sometimes that’s how the cookie crumbles,” Green said Thursday. “We have to figure it out and deal with it. It’s rough. It sucks for sure.”