SAN FRANCISCO — At the quarter mark, the Warriors own a perfectly even and mediocre record of 10-10. Now, they may need to tread water without their franchise cornerstone.
Steph Curry missed the final moments of the Warriors’ 104-100 loss to the Kevin Durant-less Houston Rockets on Wednesday evening at Chase Center due to a right quad contusion, and he will undergo an MRI to determine the injury’s severity.
“When I heard it was a quad, I was actually kind of relieved,” said coach Steve Kerr. “Better than an ankle or a knee. So, hopefully he can recover quickly and be okay, but you have to hold down the fort.”
“Nobody wants to get hurt, especially (Curry),” said forward Jimmy Butler, who had a team-high 21 points. “Obviously, we go as far as he goes, but we want him to be right so we have the best opportunity to be great. I think we can hold the fort down for a couple of days.”
Curry appeared to sustain the injury with roughly four-and-a-half minutes remaining in the fourth quarter when he collided with Rockets center Alperen Şengün, who was setting a screen. The 37-year-old guard immediately began hobbling after running into Şengün but remained in the game for the next four minutes.
With 35.2 seconds remaining in regulation and the Warriors trailing by five points, Curry exited the ballgame and walked gingerly back to the locker room. Due in part to the injury, Curry finished with 14 points on 4-of-13 shooting with a season-high six turnovers.
The Warriors, of course, cannot replace Curry’s superstar production. Over 16 games, Curry is averaging 27.9 points per game with a true shooting percentage of 64.1 percent.
If Curry has to miss time, Kerr and forward Draymond Green said “everything” changes. Kerr said without Curry, Golden State’s rotations and style of play would both morph. Butler, as is his wont, provided an even more candid assessment.
“I think we’re going to have to be damn near perfect,” Butler said. “We aren’t going to have the ultimate bailout on our team. Even when he is on the floor, we’re going to have to do our job because we make the game difficult. As great of a basketball player he is, he has a really hard job every single day if he’s got to be like the Batman of all Batmans and save us every night. That’s not what he’s here to do.”
Added Green: “We can’t turn the ball over, can’t give up offensive rebounds. You gotta start with that because you have to give yourself some way to make up all those points. So, start there. Take care of little [expletive] you can take care of.”
When Butler was asked about taking on a bigger load if Curry misses time, Butler rebutted that his concern was not with the Warriors’ offense, but with their defense.
“I don’t care about offense; we need to guard somebody,” Butler said. “We’re good to score, but I don’t want the offense if we’re missing shots to dictate not going and guarding on the defensive side of the ball. I’m going to play the exact same way. … We just have to guard.”
Green, who helped contain Şengün to 16 points on 7-of-18 shooting from the field, echoed his disdain for Golden State’s defensive effort.
“Our defense is [expletive],” Green said. “Because it’s not necessarily the numbers. Like, how do you feel when you’re out there? If it’s just let down after let down, it’s bigger than the numbers. Defense is about demeanor. If there’s letdown after letdown, it kills your demeanor and it kills your bravado, then you’re just a soft team. What does the other team feel when you’re defending them? Right now, they don’t feel any force.”
Added Green: “It requires individuals. All of us as individuals to take on your challenge. And if you take on your challenge, then we can make the team thing work. But the only way to make the team thing work is if we take on individual challenges. And right now, we are individually — and I know everybody likes to twist words — I said we are individually [expletive] awful.”
Golden State’s defense allowed Houston’s Reed Sheppard to score a career-high 28 points on a career-high 25 shots, but defense was not the only culprit of Wednesday night’s loss.
Along with Curry’s off night and early exit, the Warriors lost the turnover battle, 16-10. With tonight’s loss, the Warriors are now 9-1 when they win the turnover battle but 1-9 when they lose it.
There was also the matter of allowing offensive rebounds. Even without center Steven Adams, the Rockets pulled down a season-high 25 offensive rebounds, totaling 23 offensive rebounds by the end of the third quarter.
“Great rebounding team, very physical and give them credit,” Kerr said. “They’re doing a good job even without some key players.”
The Warriors led 43-42 with 3:30 remaining in the second quarter after Amen Thompson threw down an alley-oop from Clint Capela, but Golden State closed the first half with an emphatic 16-5 run and went into the break with a 59-47 lead.
The Rockets had their response in the third quarter, pulling down 10 offensive rebounds and outscoring the Warriors 27-17 to get back in the ballgame. Post’s 19-foot jumper with 0.9 seconds remaining in the third gave the Warriors a 76-74 lead going in the fourth quarter.
Houston took its first lead of the evening on its first possession of the fourth quarter as Aaron Holiday knocked down a 3-pointer from the right wing, fully erasing a Golden State lead that had ballooned to 14 points. The Rockets’ lead grew as large as eight points, but Richard’s cutting layup with 3:43 left in the fourth tied the game at 91 apiece.
The Rockets took a 93-91 lead after Thompson knocked down a pair of free throws, but Brandin Podziemski stepped to the free throw line with 3:17 remaining with an opportunity to tie the game.
Podziemski missed three consecutive free throws even after being gifted an extra opportunity when the Rockets committed a lane violation. Following those misses, the Rockets would proceed to put the game on ice and send fans to the exits early.
