The Warriors are hoping to extend their series with Minnesota to at least six games to give Stephen Curry the best chance to return, Shams Charania of ESPN said on tonight’s NBA Countdown (Twitter video link).
Curry, who suffered a Grade 1 left hamstring strain in the series opener, is scheduled to be reevaluated on Wednesday. He was projected to miss at least a week when the injury occurred May 6.
Sources tell Charania that the Warriors view Game 6 as “the earliest potential window” for Curry to resume playing. Games 3 and 4 are tonight and Monday in San Francisco before the series returns to Minnesota for Game 5 on Wednesday. A scheduling quirk gives the teams a three-day break prior to Game 6 next Sunday back in the Bay Area.
Charania reports that Curry is receiving “a ton of treatment” on his hamstring as he tries to work his way back into playing shape. He adds that there’s still plenty of work left to do to get Curry through the progression of “movement, contact, running, sprinting.”
Charania also points out that this is the first muscle strain that the 37-year-old Curry has experienced in his NBA career, which adds to the caution surrounding his rehab work.
Curry was limited to 13 minutes in Game 1, but he scored 13 points and was 3-of-6 on three-pointers as Golden State picked up a 99-88 road victory. The offense struggled without him in Game 2, producing just 15 points in the first quarter on the way to a 117-93 defeat.
Coach Steve Kerr leaned heavily on Curry in the final two games of the first-round series against Houston, playing him 42 minutes in Game 6 and 46 minutes in Game 7, which was two days before the Minnesota series began. Curry discussed the difficulty of trying to create open shots against the Rockets, calling them “one of the toughest defenses I think I’ve ever faced” (Twitter video link from 95.7 The Game).