SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Stephen Curry limped away from the bench late in Golden State’s 104-100 loss to the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night after bruising his right quadriceps.
He will undergo an MRI exam on the injury to determine his status.
The Warriors will have to regroup with the idea that Curry might be out for a stretch.
“It obviously changes everything, our rotations, how we’re playing, who we’re playing through, so we’ll see,” coach Steve Kerr said. “When I heard it was a quad I was actually kind of relieved, better than an ankle or a knee, so hopefully he can recover quickly and be OK. But we’ve got to hold down the fort.”
Curry and Amen Thompson went down hard under the basket with 3:24 remaining and the game tied at 91 after Thompson’s drive to the hoop, which initially was whistled an offensive foul. Houston challenged and the call was overturned to a block by Curry.
Kerr said he could see Curry ailing after that play. The two-time MVP finished with 14 points on 4-for-13 shooting — 2 of 9 on 3-pointers — seven rebounds, five assists and seven of the Warriors’ 16 turnovers that led to 22 Houston points.
“That’s a challenge, if Steph is out everybody else has to kind of improve their game a lot to fill that void,” rookie Will Richard said.
Guard Gary Payton II also suffered a sprained left ankle that limited him to just under five minutes.
Jimmy Butler said “it’s just sad” how the Warriors don’t follow their game plan and do the little things sometimes and challenged everybody to ”care more” about the details — especially if they’re without Curry.
“What will change the most? I think we’re going to have to be damn near perfect. We ain’t going to have the ultimate bailout on our team, but even when he is on the floor we’re going to have to do our job because we make the game real difficult. As great as a basketball player as he is he has a really hard job every single day, he’s got to be the Batman of all Batmans and save us every night. That ain’t what he’s here to do.”
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