Despite leaving the Golden State Warriors’ last game early, Stephen Curry has said he’ll continue to play through the pain.
Stephen Curry has without doubt been the best player in the NBA this season. As his Golden State Warriors keep the idea of beating the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls’ 72-10 record alive, he continues to be the top spectacle in basketball. The only thing that’s hindered his performance so far has been a recent left shin injury that kept him sidelined for two games at the end of December and has since forced him to leave two more games early.
As the Warriors defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 109-88 on Wednesday night, Curry had a slight collision with Roy Hibbert when rising for a layup. When combined with other hits to his leg over the last couple of outings, he had to leave the game early. The Warriors announced at the start of the fourth quarter that he wouldn’t be returning, and the rest of his teammates took the load from there for an easy victory.
However, while the Warriors have still been getting on well with a limited Curry, he has said that he will play through the injury (per Ben Golliver of Sports Illustrated):
"During his post-game comments, Curry acknowledged that he will need to continue playing through the pain for the time being because doctors advised him that his leg would take “four weeks” to heal fully.“I’m not going to sit out four weeks, so I have to figure out how to protect it when I’m out there on the floor,” he said. “We’ve done it a good amount and have had a couple of unlucky plays.”"
It’s understandable that Curry wasn’t happy with the idea of giving his leg a full month to heal. With the kind of historic momentum both he and his Warriors have, it makes sense that he wants to keep that going as long as possible. Even though it’s always optimal to let a player, especially a superstar, recover fully before returning, this injury shouldn’t hinder Curry too much at all.
On the court, he’ll just have to be aware of making drives to the lane through contact, but he thrives off weaving through players with his ball handling to avoid that anyway.
Even after leaving early against the Denver Nuggets on January 2, he effortlessly returned in the Warriors’ next game to score 30 points on 12-21 shooting.
With Draymond Green racking up triple-doubles nonstop and doing everything possible to lead the Warriors, fans certainly don’t have anything to worry about. Klay Thompson averaging 27.7 points over the last 10 games is pretty helpful, too.
Even if Curry’s minutes are reduced slightly, the Warriors won’t be slowing down any time soon. With upcoming games against the Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings, Miami Heat and Nuggets, it won’t be remotely surprising if they improve their record to 37-2.
That’s just scary good.