Warriors star Stephen Curry sustained a Grade 1 left hamstring strain on Tuesday in the second quarter of Golden State’s Game 1 victory over Minnesota. Speaking to reporters — including Anthony Slater of The Athletic and Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN — at Thursday’s shootaround, Curry called the situation a “gut punch.”
“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 (of Game 1), 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 has already been ruled out for the next three games of the series due to the injury. If necessary, Game 5 will take place next Wednesday. While the 37-year-old said he doesn’t have a specific return date, he suggested next Wednesday might too optimistic at this point. Both Slater and Youngmisuk point out that there would be three full days off before a potential Game 6.
“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. “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.”
According to Youngmisuk, Curry was asked if he will have to fight an urge to return early if his team finds itself in a hole without him.
“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.”
While he was obviously extremely disappointed to have suffered a hamstring injury for the first time this late in his career with an opportunity to win another title, he said he was grateful the strain wasn’t more severe. Curry also said Golden State gained confidence after taking Game 1 and believes the team can do well without the 11-time All-Star.
“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.”