SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry is expected to play Sunday night against the Houston Rockets after missing the last two months because of a right knee injury.<\/p>\n
Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after Saturday\u2019s practice that Curry, who has not played since Jan. 30, has looked good in practice and that the hope is that if Curry feels good on Sunday, he will be cleared to make his return.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels great,\u201d Curry said. \u201cA long process. Longer than I thought, but I\u2019m just happy to have a little clarity and a little window to get back out there and try to get to the level I was playing at and finish the year strong, so I\u2019m excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Curry is officially listed as questionable, but he was in good spirits Saturday afternoon as he joked around with teammates and coaches before starting his normal shooting routine after practice.<\/p>\n
Curry admitted that he was surprised the injury lasted as long as it did, and acknowledged a little \u201cpanic\u201d over the last couple of weeks that he wouldn\u2019t have enough time in the schedule to return. But he said he feels confident the knee is in good enough shape to finish out the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was more of a mental thing at first,\u201d Curry said. \u201cMeaning I didn\u2019t know enough about it, and I thought I was going to be out a week, 10 days, max. But it calmed down, and every time I got on the court, or tried to push it in that first month there was always a reaction, or you knew it just wasn\u2019t healing as fast as you thought.\u201d<\/p>\n
Curry said the hardest part over the last two months was trying to continue being patient as the pain lingered within the knee.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the patience then was tough because it\u2019s one of those injuries that you really just have to let rest,\u201d Curry said. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing you can kind of push through or be on the court while it\u2019s healing. And it\u2019s just a different experience than most injuries that I\u2019ve had that have like a very defined timeline and a very defined process of, \u2018Do this, then you\u2019re gonna feel this, and then this is gonna heal and you\u2019re gonna be able to do this,\u2019 all those checkpoints.<\/p>\n
This is every day I wake up, the first thing you think about it is, \u2018How does it feel?\u2019 So that unpredictability was definitely a struggle throughout the whole process. And even still now, as good as I do feel now, I hope it stays that way. It\u2019s just a matter of getting out there and seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aside from Curry saying the knee was feeling better, the most notable part of his post-practice press conference was the acknowledgement that he wasn\u2019t sure if the runner\u2019s knee issue would linger heading into the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes and no,\u201d Curry said. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing structurally wrong with my knee, so it\u2019s not like I\u2019m compromised out there. It is a new normal, though, if that makes sense. So it\u2019s just a matter of understanding what I need to do off the court to make sure everything around my knee is strong and firing the right way. I will take full advantage of the offseason whenever it is, to have a full reset. And then you just kind of figure out what it is going into next year, but right now I kind of understand what the new normal is and it\u2019s good enough to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
That new normal extends to a new daily routine. Curry sounded confident he will play in Sunday\u2019s game, but there\u2019s always the possibility he could wake up Sunday morning with pain in his knee. As hard as he and the Warriors\u2019 training staff have worked to get him back to this point, that\u2019s also part of the \u201cnew normal\u201d that he described. It\u2019s something Curry will be thinking about in the months ahead as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s in the back of your mind,\u201d Curry said. \u201cBut even if that is the case, I know I\u2019ve done everything I can to get back out there. So I try to stay positive and optimistic, stay in the moment, and embrace the blessing of being able to play \u2026 that is part of the reason I want to come back, just to feel that adrenaline and the nerves and the competition again after this long break. And then however it plays out, I know I\u2019ve done everything I can to give myself a shot and that\u2019s all I can ask for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kerr spoke for many within the organization while describing what the mood has been like for the Warriors with Curry back in the fold.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just brings hope to everybody,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cThe sun is shining a little brighter. The food tastes a little better. Steph is Steph. He brings joy to everybody. Players, coaches, fans. He\u2019s a special human being.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry is expected to play Sunday night against the Houston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3794],"tags":[7,164,292,194,4066,6,211],"class_list":{"0":"post-698516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-rockets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-golden-state-warriors","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-rockets","12":"tag-houstonrockets","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-rockets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116348682809305051","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}