The Golden State Warriors took Game 1 in their second-round playoff matchup against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Unfortunately, the Dubs still suffered a loss. Steph Curry sustained a strained hamstring and left the game after only playing 13 minutes. Now the Chef has been listed as out for Game 2 and is set to be reevaluated in a week.
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The Inside the NBA crew spoke about Curry’s untimely injury on today’s broadcast on TNT. They looked at how the four-time champion was hurt on a defensive play, yet played through the injury to land one last shot. The good news for the Warriors is that they won Game 1 and now have home-court advantage. The bad? Curry most likely won’t be back until Game 5, possibly later.
Charles Barkley was the first to speak on Curry, and predicted what he thinks will be the 3-point God’s biggest setback with the injury. “It’s probably gonna be his conditioning,” said the Hall of Famer. “The way he runs around, cause he probably won’t be able to do any conditioning, the amount of energy he uses during a game.”
“Other than Reggie Miller and guys like that, I’ve never seen a guy work harder without the ball. It’s gonna be interesting,” added Barkley. He’s not wrong regarding how much Steph moves without the ball. We saw in the Rockets series what a team will do to hold off The Chef from shooting.
Steph’s conditioning is second to none. The hamstring strain will certainly slow him down, but how does that mean he’ll be getting winded sooner? If Chuck meant that practicing will be harder for Steph than sure that makes sense. But Chuck specifically stated conditioning.
Steph Curry was in tears after finding out about the injury
If there is one thing that Curry has proved in his epic NBA career, it’s that he loves to compete. Whether it’s for the Warriors or Team USA, The Chef always leaves it all on the floor. So when he found out that he may miss a large portion of the Wolves series because of the injury, it hit him harder than the Dubs fans.
Curry reportedly had tears in his eyes when he was given his diagnosis. Head coach Steve Kerr, who is as close to Curry as anyone else, could only give his superstar guard a hug as he tried to think of a new scheme against Minnesota.
One thing that might light a fire under the Warriors is the words spoken by Wolves’ star Jaden McDaniels. He told the media that switching from Curry to guarding Buddy Hield was “kind of easy” because “Buddy kind of does the same as Steph … I wouldn’t say he’s as good as Steph.”
The last thing any of the Wolves should be doing is putting any type of bad juju on themselves by calling anyone on the Warriors easy. Is this a huge advantage for Minnesota now? Yes, but this isn’t the Warriors of 2024. Jimmy Butler is here. And he’s angry.
