Warriors will be without Curry, Green against Nets
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Steph Curry is expected to join All-Star teammate Draymond Green on the sidelines Saturday night when the Golden State Warriors take on the Brooklyn Nets.
Curry suffered what was diagnosed Friday as a relatively minor groin strain in Thursday's blowout loss to Milwaukee.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr announced Friday that Curry's status will be evaluated on a day-to-day basis, but that he wouldn't play against the Nets.
"He's pretty bummed out, but the MRI was basically good news," Kerr reported to the media. "This doesn't look like it's going to be a long-term injury. He's disappointed, but it could have been a lot worse."
With Green also sidelined by a toe injury and Shaun Livingston having been out the last two weeks with a sore foot, Kerr announced that Quinn Cook would start in Curry's place against a Brooklyn team that flew into town early Saturday morning following a 112-110 win at Denver.
Playing without Curry is nothing new to the Warriors.
He missed six playoff games with a knee injury in 2016, three in the first round against Houston and three in the Western semifinals against Portland. The Warriors won both series in five games.
He then battled an assortment of injuries last season, missing 31 regular-season and six playoff games. The Warriors went 22-15 in those games, including 5-1 in the playoffs.
Curry and Green sat side-by-side at five games last December, leaving Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson to guide the Warriors to five straight wins. Durant averaged 31.4 points and 6.4 assists during the run, while Thompson made at least three 3-pointers in each game and averaged 23.2 points.
Curry and Green also missed three games together in March, but one (a win over the Los Angeles Lakers) was also played without Thompson, while Durant and Thompson made it four sidelined All-Stars for home losses to Utah and Indiana.
Things went south well before Curry headed to sidelines for good in the third quarter in the loss to the Bucks. Milwaukee ran off to as much as a 15-point lead in the second period and was up 96-69 with 3:41 left in the third when Curry went out.
Other than the back-to-back issue, the Nets will take the Oakland court as healthy as ever this season, with DeMarre Carroll having made his season debut in Denver.
Carroll, who underwent offseason knee surgery, had nine points in 14 minutes in Friday's shocker at Denver, a win that was the result of the Nets scoring the game's last six points, the final two on a floater in the key by Caris LeVert with three-tenths of a second remaining.
One of the 11 games Carroll missed was a 120-114 home loss to the Warriors on Oct. 28.
Curry set an NBA record in that one when his seven 3-pointers gave him five or more in each of Golden State's first seven games. George McCloud had held the record of six straight games for 23 years.
The Nets actually outscored the Warriors 60-33 on threes in the game, using them to slice a 19-point deficit to two before the Warriors held on in the end.
The Warriors have won seven straight against the Nets, sweeping the last three season series.
