Curry to sit out last game when Warriors host Magic
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Before the Golden State Warriors get Stephen Curry back from his groin injury on their upcoming five-game Eastern trip, they'll play one more home game without him Monday night when they host the Orlando Magic.
The Warriors will be wrapping up a rapid-fire, six-day, four-game home stand, but it's the Magic who figure to be the most fatigued of the two, having battled the Los Angeles Lakers a full 48 minutes on Sunday afternoon for a 108-104 win on the first day of a road back-to-back.
Now the Magic, who also beat the Lakers on their last home stand, go from LeBron James to the two-time defending champs, albeit without Curry.
"Just playing isn't going to cut it," noted Jonathan Isaac, who came off the bench to contribute six points and five rebounds to the win over the Lakers. "We need to do our best to limit their guys, K.D. (Kevin Durant) and Klay (Thompson), and we'll see.
"It's tough because with the back-to-back, we don't have time to get in the gym and go over what they do. We gotta do it at the hotel, so that kinda sets us behind the eight-ball."
If there's a positive to the back-to-back, Sunday's game was played in the afternoon, after which just a one-hour flight was required to get to the San Francisco Bay Area. So getting a full night's sleep and still having plenty of time for a morning "shootaround" at the hotel shouldn't have been a problem.
The biggest problem, to which Isaac alluded, will be the presence of Durant and Thompson, who were a two-man show in home wins over Portland and Sacramento on consecutive nights Friday and Saturday.
Durant rebounded from a recent cold spell on 3-pointers to make two in each game while shooting 26-for-47 overall (55 percent) in the two games, scoring 32 and 44 points.
He'd been 2-for-22 on threes in his previous five games.
Thompson, meanwhile, followed in his own miss for the game-winning hoop in Saturday's 117-116 win over the Kings. He shot 24-for-47 (51 percent) overall and 9-for-21 on 3-pointers in the two wins, going for 31 points each night.
The two wins came immediately in the wake of the first four-game losing streak in the Steve Kerr era. The losses, as well as two subsequent wins, were played without Curry.
Five of the games also were played without Draymond Green, out with a bruised toe, although he's been listed as "day-to-day" since Friday and could return for the Magic game.
Kerr was happy to report Saturday that Curry shouldn't be far behind, news that seemed to make his team as happy as the narrow win.
"Hope those guys come back Monday, but if they don't we know what works for us," Thompson told reporters after the win. "We're definitely getting a groove now. When you feel like you go on a little win streak, your confidence is up and everybody who was in the game tonight, we're all playing well together right now. We just got to do it again on Monday."
The Warriors have done it 10 straight times to the Magic, sweeping each of the last five season series. They've won eight of the games by at least eight points.
The trip to Oakland has provided an annual unhappy homecoming for Magic forward Aaron Gordon, a San Jose native. He's never beaten the Warriors in three trips home, although he did have a 20-point, 16-rebound effort in one of them.
