A cruel trick is being played on Steph Curry. The basketball gods have taped open his eyes and forced him to watch a precious chance slip away.
In one sense, every day the odds seem to increase, the prospect looks brighter, for something that once felt so far away: A fifth championship for Curry’s Golden State Warriors. It feels even more possible as these playoffs unfold.
The Oklahoma City Thunder don’t look so inevitable after a 68-win season. However resilient, the Denver Nuggets are beatable. The Boston Celtics were already vulnerable and now have lost Jayson Tatum — and Curry feels good in Boston anyway. The Cleveland Cavaliers, the East’s top seed, are down 3-1.
Four months ago, the Warriors were clinging desperately to a Play-In spot. Now, a path to a fifth championship of the era is glowing like a runway.
But Curry can’t take off. A Grade 1 left hamstring strain interrupted him just as he found his groove. The Minnesota Timberwolves would be in trouble in this second-round series if Curry was healthy. The Golden State locker room certainly agrees. However, the looming possibility — one game from being realized after Monday’s 117-110 loss to Minnesota in Game 4 pushed the Warriors to the edge of elimination — is no one will get to see Curry try.
Because of that ailing hamstring.
And that monster Anthony Edwards.
And that invisible lid on the Warriors’ basket.
The exact reason Golden State could conceivably win a championship is the very reason they can’t win enough to get him back on the court. His greatness is so central to the Warriors’ success. They starve without him.
“It’s the fact that we’re playing some lineups that don’t have a ton of spacing, by necessity, to be able to guard and to be able to hang defensively,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “There’s just not going to be as many openings, and we know that.
“We do feel like if we can push the tempo, force some turnovers, we can get some open looks in transition. But without Steph, the game changes, and we have to adapt accordingly, and we’re probably not going to take as many 3s.”
Curry will fly to Minneapolis for Wednesday’s Game 5. His hamstring will be re-evaluated. A return for Game 5 is not impossible, but it is incredibly unlikely. He hasn’t been able to even test his hamstring during the week of prescribed rest. So no one knows yet how it will respond to being pushed. Even if somehow he tests it and it feels manageable, he hasn’t practiced or played. Jumping into an intense playoff series with no ramp-up time doesn’t sound like a good plan for an ailing hamstring. It’s a brutal fate, but he’s sustained the kind of injury his will can’t overwhelm.
For a man who’s talked repeatedly about seizing the opportunity in front of him, about playing meaningful games, about understanding the hourglass is short on sand, how tortuous this must be.
Torturous enough to force himself on the court in Game 5? To press Rick Celebrini, the Warriors’ guru of performance and injury management, to allow him to push it? It would be completely against Celebrini’s code to chase a win at the expense of health. And more damage to Curry’s 37-year-old hamstring could have lasting ramifications. For next season. For the rest of his career.
But what if this is their last best chance? What if this is the window? What if his mere presence on the court is enough to change the tide of this series?
One win would improve their odds of Curry returning, as the teams have three days off before Sunday’s Game 6. But the Warriors are 0-for-3 in that endeavor. The Timberwolves are getting stronger and heading home. They’re looking at the same illuminated path that Curry is seeing. Edwards knows getting the Warriors off his plate would allow Minnesota to sit back while Denver and OKC slug it out in the other Western Conference semifinal.
Counting out the Warriors proved a mistake the last time they faced elimination. It would fit their pedigree for them to go into Minnesota and pull out a gutty win.
To this point, the Warriors simply can’t make enough shots without Curry, especially in the moments they need them. The Timberwolves have seven players in their eight-man rotation who are eager to score and will more often than not punish a defense for leaving them open.
The Warriors have, what, three or four guys outside of Curry who salivate at the opportunity to score? Fewer who have proven they can, even when left open.
In the first round against the Houston Rockets, the Warriors generated 20.7 wide-open 3s per game with Curry, according to NBA.com, behind only Oklahoma City — and that was against Houston’s defense. They shot 38.6 percent when the nearest defender was at least six feet away.
In the last three games of these conference semifinals, with Curry out, they’re down to 14.3 wide-open 3s per game, making 41.9 percent.
Now compare that to Minnesota: 20.3 wide-open 3s in the same span at a 47.5-percent clip.
“You give up 117 points without Steph, you’re probably losing,” Green said, “because the likelihood that we’re going to score 117 points without him is not that high.”
But the truer picture of the Warriors’ malnutrition in shotmaking is on open 3s. The NBA defines that as a defender being 4-6 feet away, basically in range to contest.
The Warriors are averaging 8.3 of those over the last three games, and making just 20 percent. Minnesota isn’t much better — 11.3 on 35.3 percent — but enough when facing such offensive anemia. In the eight games with Curry, the Warriors generated twice the looks (16.6) and made 34.6 percent of them.
The Warriors aren’t facing elimination because Brandin Podziemski’s outside shot has betrayed him. Or because Moses Moody has lost his mojo. Or because Jimmy Butler — under the weather for Game 4, per his teammates — couldn’t summon another Herculean performance. Or because Draymond Green couldn’t do anything to slow the Timberwolves’ offense, as Edwards and Julius Randle put out every fire with demoralizing buckets. Or because Kerr can’t seem to find a sustainable combination of players to bring good enough defense, offense and intangibles to beat the Timberwolves.
Certainly, any one of them could’ve delivered the one win had they scratched the surface of perfection.
But they are no more to blame than limbs and organs can be blamed for not working optimally when a brain is injured. No more to blame than one’s personality and behaviors not clicking right when the soul is heavy.
Taking Curry from this offense is a lobotomy. Removing him from their lineup extracts its life source.
The only way to get him back is to win. The Warriors have one more chance, presuming Curry does not Willis Reed this thing. Perhaps a nothing-to-lose setting makes their shots less heavy, and Buddy Hield or Podziemski find their 3-point prowess. Perhaps the desperation of elimination brings out another level of intensity in Golden State, as it did in Game 7 in Houston. Perhaps Butler recovers in time for an epic performance. Perhaps Green can solve the Randle dilemma and cut off Edwards’ damaging wingman.
It wouldn’t be shocking.
But if not, if Game 5 follows the pattern of the last three in this series, the Timberwolves will prove to be too formidable to conquer without Curry. This golden opportunity will be spoiled by his misfortune. The path to a fifth championship will dim in Minnesota.
And Curry, in a cruel twist, will just have to watch.
(Top photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
