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OAKLAND — The doors to the Warriors’ practice gym opened, providing a window on the team’s star power.
Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant engaged in a shooting contest that lasted about 20 minutes. At one point, Durant made four consecutive 3-pointers before finally missing one. Curry sank eight consecutive 3-pointers before one hit off the rim.
“I just pinch myself,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.
But just because Curry and Durant’s post-practice shooting returned on Thursday, things are not exactly back to normal. Durant remains sidelined for at least another week with a rib injury. Though the Warriors (53-18) enter Friday’s game against the Atlanta Hawks (21-50) expecting Curry to return after missing the past six games with a right ankle injury, the Warriors and Curry conceded his ankle has not fully healed.
“I don’t want to overstate it. There is definitely aspects of bone bruises and ligaments and all of that stuff that happens with ankles that doesn’t really bother you on the floor. But if you’re being really nitpicky, it’s definitely not 100 percent,” Curry said. “Right now, there’s nothing that’s going to happen between now and the end of June that can change that.”
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To change that, Kerr envisioned Curry will have some combination of rest and treatment sometime this summer. Yet, Curry added the ankle injury is not serious enough to require surgery or any non-invasive procedure.
Therefore, Warriors trainer Chelsea Lane told Kerr “there’s nothing more to be gained from keeping” Curry out. After all, Kerr called Curry’s two-week rehab process “very productive.”
“That’s all I need to hear. If it made sense to give him another week, we’d do that, but it doesn’t, given the nature of his ankle,” Kerr said. “They’ve made great strides in the rehab the last couple of weeks. He’s doing well and feels good. He’s going to play.”
And Curry is going to play with the possibility that he does not need to play on a minutes restriction. If Kerr notices Curry feeling fatigued, the Warriors coach will rest his star player at times. If not, Curry will likely assume the same workload that entailed averaging 26.3 points while shooting efficiently from the field (49.4 percent) and 3-point range (42.4 percent) and adding 6.2 assists and 5.1 rebounds in 32.1 minutes per game.
But after having four ankle injuries this season alone, how does Curry ensure this does not happen again?
“The only thing I can do is strengthen everything around my ankle to try to protect me the best that I can if that were to happen,” Curry said. “As long as I’m not putting myself in jeopardy of being stable and strong and able to support me with all the moves I try on the floor, I’ll be good to go.”
Curry first sprained his ankle on Dec. 4 in New Orleans after stepping on the foot of Pelicans forward E’Twaun Moore while trying to force a turnover. After sitting out for 11 games, Curry then aggravated the sprain in his right ankle after slipping during a post-shootaround workout on Jan. 10. He then missed two more games.
Almost two months later, Curry stepped on the foot of Warriors center Zaza Pachulia on March 2 in Atlanta. Though Curry still had 28 points in 24 minutes, he eventually sat midway through the third quarter after his ankle tightened up at halftime. Curry came nowhere close toward lasting that long when he stepped on the foot of Spurs guard Dejounte Murray on March 8. Curry made a pair of foul shots before leaving the game after playing only two minutes. He stayed sidelined ever since.
“It doesn’t really matter what you do in that situation. The only thing I can do is strengthen everything around my ankle and try to protect it the best I can, if that were to happen,” Curry said. “When it comes to me just being the player I want to be, doing the moves I want to do, making the cuts that I want to make and stuff like that — I can do all of that stuff right now. In regards to that, I’m not really worried about it.”
That has not stopped some worries about the Warriors’ vulnerability. The Warriors went 2-4 with Curry on the sidelines during his recent ailment, something that also coincided with injuries to Thompson (four games), Durant (three) and Green (one half).
“If we’re trying to win a championship, I need to be out there obviously. That’s a given when it comes to the team we put together,” Curry said. “We want every single guy healthy and available, myself included. That’s the ideal situation.”
It actually might be an ideal situation, though, for the Warriors to experience their recent struggles. The Warriors’ star players do not have serious injuries. They could feel rejuvenated and refreshed once they return shortly before the playoffs. And as for Curry, he returns to the lineup without any suggestion from the Warriors’ training staff or coaches that he needs to modify his game both to account for any rustiness and to avoid further injury.
“I’m not coming back on the court feeling I need to do anything different or play any type of way that I can protect myself,” Curry said. “I want to play aggressive, do what I do and build up that momentum, rhythm and chemistry with other guys as everybody starts to come back gearing up for the playoffs. But I don’t put any extra pressure on myself. I know one through 15, we have all the guys ready to go if we’re going to win a championship.”
So with the 30-year-old Curry experiencing “three untimely freak accidents” in a single season, he does not sense that means Father Time has arrived ready to fight. Perhaps in three or four years, Curry admitted. But not now.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m shooting 3’s, pull ups or going to the lane or playing defense, that’s liable to happen anytime,” Curry said. “Other than those instances, I haven’t had anything to worry about on the injury front. We’re prisoners of the moment of ‘This is something I dealt with my career and this and that.’ But I don’t feel I’m at a point where I have to really change anything, based on me being a durable player or doing anything on the court consistently.”
