Click here if you have trouble viewing this gallery in your mobile device.
OAKLAND — Steph Curry unleashed an F-bomb as he trotted to the bench, grimacing in pain as he placed nine of his 10 fingers against his knees. The 10th, the middle finger on his left hand, dangled in the air.
As Clint Capela rolled to the basket and received a lob from Chris Paul three and a half minutes into the game, Curry slid over from the corner and swiped at the ball with his left hand. Instead of knocking the ball loose, Curry dislocated his finger.
Curry grabbed at his left hand while he walked into the tunnel, bent over, not knowing if his finger was broken or simply dislocated. Luckily for the Warriors, it was the latter, as X-rays returned negative and Curry returned just over three minutes after leaving the court with his middle and index fingers taped together.
“It hurts, but it’ll be alright. I didn’t break anything. I am fortunate and some higher powers were looking out for me on that one, but hopefully before Saturday that goes away and I’ll be fine,” Curry said. “I was able to play. It’s different when I’ve never had a dislocated finger like that before and they pop it back in and you’re just dealing with pain, but I wasn’t thinking about it out there.”
Curry scored 20 points but shot only 3-of-13 from deep, and at times seemed limited dribbling with his left hand. The Warriors topped the Rockets, 115-109, though, as Curry battled through his injury to give the Warriors just enough as they took a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference Semifinals on Tuesday night.
“It looked bad when he came off the floor. I looked at the finger,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “I was hoping it was just a dislocation and not a break. Fortunately that’s what it turned out to be. As far as whether it bothered him, you can ask him that. I thought he did some great things for us and fueled us. May not have shot the 3 that well, but played a great game for us.”
Curry missed his first four 3s after returning, but got a finger roll and a pull-up 3 to fall in the final 44 seconds of the first quarter. Shortly after entering in the second quarter, still nursing a bum middle finger, he blocked Clint Capela’s shot from behind with his injured hand and saved the ball from going out of bounds.
So how’d that feel?
“What you think?” Curry said smiling, tilting his head toward a reporter, who then asked if Curry regretted blocking Capela’s shot with his left hand.
“Nah,” Curry said smirking. “I ain’t got a block like that in a minute, so I’ll take the pain for that for sure.”
Curry never established a rhythm from the field (he went 6-of-16 overall) and finished his second straight game with five fouls, this time picking up his fifth with 5:37 left in the game. He recorded only two rebounds and five assists to go along with three turnovers.
Curry hit just one 3-pointer in the fourth quarter, but it was an important one. The Rockets had trimmed a 15-point deficit late in the third quarter to a three-point hole midway through the fourth. Curry, 2-for-9 from 3 up until then, sunk a triple to give the Warriors a 96-90 lead.
Not until there were three seconds left did the Warriors lead by less, but by that point it was too late.
Even with a mangled finger and a second straight mediocre shooting night to his name, Curry did what he does so well when it counted the most. On Sunday, with only 15 points to his name through almost four full quarters, he disposed of Nene before hitting the eventual game-winning 3 with 24.9 seconds left. Two days later, with another unspectacular line through three and a half quarters, Curry hit yet another timely 3-pointer.
“I know how tough he is,” Klay Thompson said of Curry. “Especially because it’s not his shooting hand, I knew it wouldn’t affect him too badly. We wouldn’t have been able to win that game without him, so I’m really glad he came (back) out there.”
With Game 3 not until Saturday evening, Curry has plenty of time to rest his finger. Asked if head trainer Rick Celebrini had instructed him how to heal during his extended time off, Curry came with the jokes. In other words, he’ll be just fine.
“He said play as much golf as you can,” Curry said, “really get that swing speed going, test that left hand as much as you can in the next four days and everything should be fine.”
