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OAKLAND — There were several reasons the Warriors didn’t let Stephen Curry play in Game 1 of the team’s Western Conference semifinal series against the Pelicans, but one loomed above them all:
“We have to protect him from himself,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.
Curry wanted to play — he probably could have played, too — but the Warriors made the right decision to hold him out.
Game 1 isn’t going to determine any series, but bringing Curry back after missing five weeks of action, with only one scrimmage and a few shootarounds under his belt? Well, that carries a risk that could jeopardize the Warriors’ entire postseason.
Going into Saturday’s game, I cautioned the Warriors that they needed to be smart with how they handled Curry’s return.
If Curry is anything less than 100 percent, he should be sidelined. The Warriors are good enough to manage without him against the Pelicans — while the Las Vegas line on Saturday’s game shifted one point with the news that Curry was out for Game 1, that shift was from the Warriors being nine-point favorites to only being eight-point favorites.
The people who have a lot of money riding on this think the Warriors will be fine — that’s a good sign that Golden State should be cautious with Curry and confident in their ability to win without him.
Luckily, being smart has never been much of an issue for this Warriors regime, and the Saturday morning (announced Saturday evening) decision to make Curry inactive for Game 1 is no exception. (And not just because they agreed with my assessment of the situation — though it helps…)
No, the Warriors deserve praise because a lesser team might have given into Curry’s pleas to play in Game 1.
The Warriors won their first-round series against the Spurs despite some woeful offensive performances in Games 4 and 5 — in their last two games against San Antonio, Golden State shot 41 percent from the floor and 21 percent from behind the 3-point line.
The Spurs deserve credit for that, but the Warriors’ offense certainly contributed to its own poor performances with turnovers, poor ball movement, and a general lack of verve.
It doesn’t take a basketball genius to know that Curry — even if he’s not at 100 percent — would help the Warriors get their offense back on track against the Pelicans in Game 1. He could have helped Golden State establish an offensive tone for the series.
But again, the decision to hold Curry out wasn’t about the Pelicans (not that anyone with the Warriors would openly admit that).
“He just said he feels great and he’s ready to go,” Kerr said. “That’s what I expected. It’s a much better answer than ‘my knee still hurts’.”
“When you’ve been out five weeks and you want to play in the playoffs, I don’t think one scrimmage is enough… He feels great and wants to play and pleaded his case, but we’re going to sit him tonight, [but he’s] very likely to play in Game 2.”
Yes, Curry is important and the Pelicans are a threat, but having the two-time MVP healthy for a potential Western Conference Finals series with the No. 1 seed Rockets and the NBA Finals (your guess is as good as mine as to who will represent the East in that series) is far more important.
The last thing the Warriors need is a repeat of the 2016 playoffs, when Curry returned a bit too early after a Grade 1 MCL sprain to take on the Blazers in the Western Conference Semifinals and then rarely looked like himself for the rest of the postseason. Obviously, a lot has changed since then — see: Durant, Kevin — but Golden State deserves credit for learning a lesson of that postseason and making absolutely sure that Curry is good to go before playing him this time around.
A Game 2 comeback gives Curry another chance to scrimmage and another full-contact scrimmage — another couple of opportunities for Curry to convince the Warriors that his knee has fully healed and that he will have the full complement of his powers for the rest of the postseason.
“[We want to make] sure he’s still feeling good and holding up well… He scrimmaged yesterday and felt good — felt good this morning — so he’ll scrimmage again [Sunday], we’ll bring in some of our guys, and he’ll get more work tomorrow and a full practice with the team on Monday,” Kerr said. “As I said, I fully expect him to play Tuesday night.”
The big question now is what role Curry will have upon his return.
He could be under a minutes restriction — one that could even put him on the bench — or he could be strong enough to play 40 minutes in Game 2.
The Warriors are in wait-and-see mode on that.
“There could be a minutes restriction, we’ll have to determine that Tuesday,” Kerr said. “I think everything is a possibility. If there’s a minutes restriction, maybe we would consider bringing him off the bench for timing purposes, but at this point it’s hard to say.”
It seems to me that the prudent play would be to put Curry on a minutes restriction for Game 2 — whether those minutes come with first or second units doesn’t matter — and let him acclimatize to the pace and physicality of the playoffs, then unleash him, full-bore, next Friday in Game 3 in New Orleans.
After all, if the gap between Games 1 and 2 is enough to convince the Warriors that Curry can play, surely the gap between Games 2 and 3 would serve a similar purpose, right?
The good news for Warriors fans is that Curry’s return is imminent.
The better news is that the Warriors are making sure when he does return, he’ll look like the Stephen Curry Golden State fans have come to know and love.