Steph Curry OUT for 1 week 😳 How can the Warriors win without their star? 👀 | NBA Today

Steph Curry OUT for 1 week 😳 How can the Warriors win without their star? 👀 | NBA Today

Tonight they’ll have to do it without three key rotational players. Donovan Mitchell is not going to try and play like a superhero, but guys, he may have to go find that cape, offensive brilliance. I didn’t know we had B. Hallebertton steps back and hits. Hallebertton trying to take Cleveland’s heart. Who right that some unfortunate news. Steph Curry officially a left hamstring strain will not return. Here goes Draymond Green to the basket. Butler with Denzel on Butler. Oh my goodness. Heel. Catch and shoot. The stroke is pure. The Warriors take down the Minnesota Timberwolves minus Stephen Curry. Today, Andrea, what’s one word to describe these playoffs? Insane, crazy, wild, bananas, the best ever. Unbelievable. That’s three. That’s three words. Don’t listen. Uh, every night there’s something that we’ve we’ve never seen before, right? including last night with the Warriors and Pacers wins. Road teams are now 5-0 for the first time in NBA history to start the conference semifinals. But for the Warriors, it came at a cost. We start our show with breaking news here. Steph Curry, he exited early in the second quarter last night against the Timberwolves with a hamstring injury and he didn’t return to the game. He played 13 minutes. He scored 13 points in the Warriors improbable win. He had an MRI this morning on that hamstring. So joining us now with the results of that MRI, our senior NBA insider Sham Shiranya. Shams, what can you tell us about Steph’s injury here? Stephen Curry has been diagnosed with a grade one left hamstring strain. I’m told he is expected to miss at least a minimum of one week. So he’s going to be out games two through four in this Warriors Minnesota Timberwolves series. And this is the first time, Malikica, that Stephen Curry has a muscle strain in his 16-year NBA career. He’s missed 245 games over 16 years, but this is the first time with a muscle strain. So, he’s never been through a rehab quite like this. And as Steve Kurr said last night, hamstrings are tricky. This is something they’re going to have to be very careful of. It is positive news overall because he did avoid a grade two or grade three strain, but this is now going to be several games here that they’re going to be playing without Stephen Curry. So, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, Buddy Heel, they’re all going to have another uh, you know, really more burden on them and they’re 12 days away from game six where you could look at as a possible window for Stephen Curry. Yeah, you see the schedule right here, Sean, if we could bring that back up real quick, director Matt, the schedule, please, because between games five and game six, there’s a really rare you you have multiple days there that you don’t see in the second round very often. The Valkyries have their home opener there. So, you would think that really extends going back to Chase Center and having a a game the the arena be available there. The Warriors are scheduled to speak later in the show. So, we’ll keep everyone updated in that. Shams, thank you very much. As we come inside our Los Angeles studios here, Chana, you’ve had a hamstring injury. What exactly is Steph going to be working through here? Hamstrings, they don’t sound bad, but they are actually very tricky. Trickier than a rolled ankle. A lot of people can play on rolled ankles, but hamstrings, they really inhibit your mobility. your ability to stride is very difficult because you lift up your leg and you feel it. You feel a pull. And also, I think it’s really tough for Steph Curry because he’s really predicated a lot of his success on his feet, on his movement. Game seven versets, he ran 1.97 miles, the most of his playoff career. This is affecting Steph Curry’s like game, his bread and butter. A lot of people think he gets all of his great shots. You know, this is game seven.99 actually. Look, um he gets a lot of his shots through his hands, right? His his form. No, it’s actually his feet, the way he moves. So, this is all about, you know, protecting his ability to come back maybe later on, but still hamstrings, don’t sleep on them. They’re trickier than you think. Yeah, we talk about game seven against the Rockets where he ran so much, but the entire Rockets series, it was such a physical series. I mean, when you talk about Steph Curry, it’s his running and his sprinting, but it’s also his cutting. You see him stop on a dime and then go get a hand off, and then even here with the ball in his hands, all of that is hard on the hamstring. So this injury in particular, like you said, with a rolled ankle, you can tape it up, you can secure it. It’s hard to do that with a hamstring. You can’t just tape it up and keep it solid. You have to have fluidity. You have to be able to move with it. It has to be able to stretch. It has to be able to give. So this is a very tricky injury. Steph Curry’s missed 12 playoff games in his career. The Golden State Warriors are nine and three in those games. And yet some way somehow they found Draymond Wardell Green in that game. So there’s a pin in screen, right? Like they are daring this man to shoot. And I feel like Draymond with his plethora of, you know, experience, he knew that he was going to be open and he had the mindset. Rudy is literally in the paint daring you to shoot and he he was ready for the moment. Draymond Green taking it on himself here without Steph Curry in the lineup, but it would take a little bit of everybody. Yeah, I know. I mean, this is what the Warriors offense is based off of, right? Spacing, spacing, ball movement, cutting. and give Draymond Green credit not just for the offensive production but for the emotional regulation for everything we have seen from Draymond Green. His leadership was huge. This man went four of six from three-point range in the first half and then Buddy Healed he really picked it up in the third quarter. Chenet. Yeah. What I love to see from Buddy Heield is that he’s doing it in a variety of ways. You know, in previous playoff series, he’s been on the bench. I think he makes the most of this moment. You know what he said? I I worked too hard to fail, right? He’s really confident and you’re seeing it in a shot. He had 11 points in the third quarter. Going ahead to the fourth here, it was all about playoff Jimmy. This is why you get a Jimmy Butler. I know we can’t sing, but there’s a famous song, closing time. That’s why you have That’s why you have him. You put your chips in the middle of the table to be able to make a tray to help for the non-step Curry minutes. Check out this counter at the bottom of your screen, Andrea. It’s because Jimmy Butler scored or assisted on every bucket for Golden State in the fourth quarter of this game. There’s so many things that Jimmy Butler can do. He plays in attack mode. He’s always looking to score, but he’s also looking to find his teammates. When he’s aggressive, it creates opportunities like this one. The Golden State Warriors, they had 19 points in the fourth quarter, and Jimmy Butler contributed in some way to all of them. The Warriors stepped up in Steph’s absence. Let’s take a listen to the NBA’s new favorite dynamic duo after the game. It’s a privilege for you to do media, man. I’m Batman today. I saved the day. Still Robin. Yes. Uh, and Steph still Batman. Buttered is still who he is. My name is Buddy. But that short for Butter. You had another good game, man. Except for that stupid thing you did at the beginning of the game when you didn’t have on the right shorts. Jimmy switches out. That’s It was Jimmy fault. Okay. You saw what happened when you shot a layup in the first quarter. This is a point blank layup. Smokey Robinson. That’s exactly what you did. We We had to get make sure he got his joy back cuz somehow he lost his joy. I’m not going to say where he lost his joy, but somehow he lost his joy. Why do you keep doing this? Do you even know what these are called? What are they called? Two fingers. Well, the the Buddy Butler duo is the duo. We didn’t even know. Get his joy back is my favorite thing. That is my favorite. I’m so glad. I really am. It’s no air quotes needed. I’m so glad that we have them and their postgame pressers. I don’t know who’s Batman, who’s Robin, who’s the Green Lantern, but they’re going to need to find some way, Alfred, to do it without Steph Curry here. Andrea, they did it in game one, but you have to imagine that the Timberwolves are going to come out with a heck of a punch in game two. What did they find that they can maybe emulate while Steph is out? Well, a couple of things, right? It’s one thing that they continued, right? They didn’t necessarily find it, but they continued their offensive fluidity when Steph Curry was off the floor. They counted 70% 75% of Golden State shots were assisted on in that game. Even without Steph Curry, we talked about Jimmy Butler with his assist. Eight Jimmy Butler assists. And I know we show him joking around with Buddy Heield, but he also gets the best out of his teammates. Buddy Heield has a ton of confidence. When we talk about Jimmy Butler, his ability to playmake, his ability to score, we have seen him put up big-time numbers. He has put multiple teams on his back. They found Jimmy Butler. They brought Jimmy Butler here to do this, to lead the way when Stephen Curry isn’t available, especially. And look at the comparison when now we’re comparing leaders on both sides. I know Aunt Edwards might have the edge when it comes to energy and youth, but Jimmy Butler has the edge when it comes to experience. Look at all of these playoff games that Jimmy Butler has been a part of. He knows what it takes to win in the playoffs. And it’s cool to see the moments come full circle because when he was 28 29, he was wearing a Timberwolves uniform and he was trying to be that top dog, right? But now he’s coming back, you know, seasoned 35, you know, a mentor in some ways. You see them laughing on the podium. But I think we can all agree we did not have the Draymond Green offensive game on our bingo card, but we absolutely knew that the defensive game was going to show up and be there. And it’s been there the entire postseason because if you look at these numbers with the Golden State when it comes to their wins, they have held their opponents to 92.2 points per game this postseason. That’s the best in the NBA. Their defense has been locked in and that’s largely Draymond Green. He is accepting the challenge. We talked about it yesterday. You know, going up against Rudy Goar. I love the words that you just said, Andrea Carter. Emotional regulation. He was exactly that. But the surprise is that we got it on both ends. But defensively, this entire Warriors team is just straight up bought it. And actually, they took the fight out of probably the team with the most bite in the NBA and the Timberwolves. And I was truly impressed with, okay, you lose Steph. Steph only plays 13 minutes. It does not matter. The core principles on both ends are there. And maybe you look at Jimmy Butler as the offensive leader, but we always have known that Draymond is the one that holds it down to it. Feels like Golden State’s going to need to figure out a way to win just one game out of the next four. They need to win one game without Steph Curry out of the next four. And if they’re going to do it, it’s going to be behind a defensive effort that holds the Timberwolves to like it’s like a 95 to 89 type of ball. That’s what they just hit. They did it and they caused the Timberwolves to struggle for a second straight game here. Overall, they’ve shot 12 of 76, which is 15% from three their last two outings. That’s the worst percentage in NBA playoff history over a twoame span with a minimum of 50 attempts. Ant was actually surprised about it when our Dave McMinnon mentioned that statistic for a team that was fourth in three-point percentage uh and fifth I think pointers made 12 for 70. like how do you even make sense of it? Um um you know uh that’s how it go. You know what I’m saying? Uh you have stretches where you shoot the ball really really well and you have stretches where you shoot the ball really really bad. You just hope the good outweigh the bad. Well, Anthony Edwards took that feedback and those notes in stride, but uh Chris Finch, he was slightly less amused. It starts with Anthony. you know, he I thought he’s was uh you know, his he struggled early. Um and then you could just kind of see the light go out a little bit for a while and then uh you know, obviously we had to try to get him going in the second half, but um it was one of those games where he kind of came out with a predetermined mindset of what he was trying to do and just rather than just playing the game that was in front of him. So, um nah, I feel like I play great defense. I just couldn’t do nothing offense. I absolutely loved it. I loved it because when your best player is getting coached the hardest, your team will be successful. And I also like the spirit of this on the week that we celebrate Greg Papovic’s coaching career because he has been one of those guys that sets the standard in coaching your top players the hardest. And we know that Anthony Edwards can respond. It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. He did not have a issue or took issue with the misses, their team going five for 29 from three. It was the fact that they settled. It was the fact that they didn’t get downhill. It was the fact that they were not physical. It was the fact that he was not in a stance. You know, the fight factor was missing. And I think he knows how to push a button to turn everybody up. And that’s why Ant was not panicking. Yeah. And I’m actually not mad at Anthony Edwards response when he talks about, you know, he felt like he brought the energy on the defensive end. Where I had an issue was when he said, “I couldn’t do anything on offense.” because it wasn’t that he couldn’t do anything on offense. It was that he didn’t do anything on offense in that first half. This is Anthony Edwards on the defensive end. Watch. He plugs the roll, then he gets back out. Now he’s contesting the shot. That’s great defensive energy. I will take that from Anthony Edwards. And here, watch him sit in his stance. Moody’s got the ball in his hands. Clock’s winding down. Shot clock’s winding down. This is where you need a stop. And look at the defensive energy from Anthony Edwards. Zero zip. Nada. You get nothing on that shot. Offensively, this is late in the game. And we didn’t see plays like this or drives like this until the third and fourth quarter. This is where when Anthony Edwards says, “I couldn’t do anything on offense.” He didn’t do any of that on offense in the first half. Anthony Edwards has to start the game offensively how he finished the game.

On NBA Today, Shams Charania joins to give an injury update surrounding Stephen Curry. Then, Andraya Carter and Chiney Ogwumike discuss how the Golden State Warriors can win vs. the Minnesota Timberwolves moving forward without their star guard.

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