Steph Curry is out for the Warriors’ in-season tournament game against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night with soreness in his right knee.
Curry underwent an MRI to determine the extent of his injury and how long he might be out, head coach Steve Kerr said before the game on Tuesday. Curry took a hard fall during the Warriors’ 116-110 loss to the Timberwolves on Sunday night, but played until the starters were removed with just over a minute left. This will be Curry’s first missed game of the year.
Golden State could see Curry’s absence as an opportunity to get some of their other scorers going. The 35–year-old star guard is leading the Warriors with 30.7 points per game and shooting 44.6% from 3. No other Warrior has scored more than 20 points in any single game so far this season.
The hope is Andrew Wiggins can use the opportunity to break out of a troubling slump in which he’s averaging 10.5 points per game shooting 15.4% from 3, all a far cry from his career-average 19 points per game shooting 38.9% from 3.
“He’s shot the ball really well for us, so that’s a big sample size when we’re talking about multiple years,” Kerr said. “This year has just started out really slowly. It happens to everybody, but when it happens at the beginning of the season it’s just so much more exposed. Everybody is talking about it.”
Curry’s absence will give the Warriors an opportunity to explore some different lineups to find some offensive spark. That will perhaps get rookie Brandin Podziemski more minutes; the rookie scored eight points in one minute of garbage time in the Warriors’ loss on Sunday. He’s showed a knack for passing and rebounding, but can have the space to find his 3-point stroke in the coming games.
“I’ve been encouraging him since camp (to shoot the 3),” Kerr said. “We were not worried about him becoming a good 3-point shooter. He already has shown it in college and practices so it’s more the mentality, and Brandin is a guy who’s first instinct is to attack the paint.”
Curry had 38 points in the loss to the Timberwolves on Sunday in the first half of this two-game series. Minnesota’s No. 1-ranked defense had the Warriors flailing offensively as anyone not named Curry was unable to get going from 3 or penetrate the paint against bigs Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns.
The Warriors are 6-5 with a 1-3 record at home so far this season. They are also 1-0 in group play of the in-season tournament, tied with the Wolves and Kings atop West Group C. The Oklahoma City Thunder will come to town for two games after Minnesota leaves to finish out Golden State’s six-game homestand.
