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<\/p>\nSAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Stephen Curry swished a 3-pointer on his second shot from deep and raised his arms in delight when the ball went through.<\/p>\n
Curry is back and healthy at long last for the Golden State Warriors, and everyone at Chase Center celebrated the magnitude of the moment right along with him.<\/p>\n
Coming off the bench in the regular season for the first time in 14 years, Curry was greeted by a warm standing ovation and greetings on the big screen \u2014 he also expressed his gratitude on video \u2014 when he entered with 4:54 left in the opening quarter against the Houston Rockets on Sunday night. <\/p>\n
He immediately passed off for an assist on a dunk by Charles Bassey, who just signed with Golden State earlier in the day. Curry made a 3-pointer with 34 seconds remaining in the period.<\/p>\n
This marked the first time he has come off the bench in a regular-season game since March 7, 2012, against Memphis. He last was a reserve in Game 4 of the first round of the 2022 playoffs during the Warriors\u2019 last championship run.<\/p>\n
Curry’s pregame warmup is always a must-see show long before the main event, and the cheers were extra loud for his latest session now that he’s finally back on the floor.<\/p>\n
Curry was cheered pregame, too, and set to play about 25 minutes following a two-plus-month absence and 27 straight games sidelined because of a right knee injury. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, left, smiles while shaking hands with Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell after an NBA basketball game in San Francisco, Thursday, April 2, 2026. Credit: AP\/Jeff Chiu<\/p>\n
He signed a few autographs after his shooting routine then missed his full-court heave before disappearing into the tunnel.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s one of the most beloved players in league history, Bay Area history in any sport and I think a long absence like this reminds everybody how lucky we are to see him, to watch him, to coach him, to play with him,\u201d coach Steve Kerr said. \u201cSo tonight’s a special night because we’re reminded of how lucky we’ve been and how lucky we still are.\u201d <\/p>\n
Kerr said before the game that it’s still unclear how many of the remaining games Curry will play given Golden State has five contests in eight days with a back-to-back the rest of the way \u2014 and the expectation is he wouldn’t play on consecutive nights.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re going to manage it accordingly. The plan for tonight would be shorter bursts and we’ll see on the minutes,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cBut first game back he’s not playing 48 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Golden State Warriors forward Gui Santos, from left, reacts from the sideline with Quinten Post, Seth Curry, Will Richard and Stephen Curry during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Cleveland Cavaliers in San Francisco, Thursday, April 2, 2026. Credit: AP\/Jeff Chiu<\/p>\n
The schedule will be determined by how Curry feels and input from Vice President of Player Health and Performance Rick Celebrini.<\/p>\n
Rockets coach Ime Udoka knew Houston would have its hands full with No. 30 back. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the best movers in the game. Four other guys at a time are concentrated on getting shots for him, so that\u2019s not just one guy, and then does a good job in general with all the screens, off-ball actions, and pick-and-rolls,\u201d Udoka said. “It\u2019s a team effort. We need to be locked in on that, and obviously we\u2019ve seen him enough and know some things that have hurt us in the past, and we need to prepare for that with him coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Curry scrimmaged several times this past week to test his injured right knee, and he said Saturday it was never a consideration to shut it down for the rest of the season. Kerr hoped to have Curry and younger brother Seth finally play together. <\/p>\n
When Stephen Curry re-entered the game at the 6:19 mark of the second quarter, they did \u2014 the first time brothers played together in Warriors franchise history, according to Elias. Seth Curry also has been injured much of the season. <\/p>\n
Seth Curry did appear in six preseason games for Golden State in 2013 then played for the team\u2019s G League Santa Cruz Warriors that year \u2014 with the brothers playing all of 100 seconds together during the fourth quarter of two games during that \u201913 preseason.<\/p>\n
Kerr had said Saturday that Stephen Curry was expected to play for the first time since Jan. 30 against Detroit, though the Warriors listed him as questionable. <\/p>\n
Curry warmed up in Kevin Durant’s \u201cScoring Title\u201d Nike KD 4s with former teammate Durant playing for the Rockets.<\/p>\n
After Saturday’s practice, Curry said dealing with the pain is part of his \u201cnew normal\u201d and the offseason will require a significant reset.<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old Curry initially expected to be playing right after the All-Star break, but the recovery was prolonged by some difficult moments when he would feel good, push hard then pay for it the following day.<\/p>\n
Curry leads the Warriors in scoring with 27.2 points per game and it has been frustrating.<\/p>\n
The Warriors (36-41) had lost three straight games overall and were 13-25 this season without Curry \u2014 including 9-18 during this stretch with him sidelined by patellofemoral pain syndrome. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Stephen Curry swished a 3-pointer on his second shot from deep and raised his arms…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3794],"tags":[7,164,292,194,4066,6,211,2148],"class_list":{"0":"post-700752","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","15":"tag-wires-bot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116355741180027747","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700752","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=700752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}