DALLAS (AP) \u2014 Stephen Curry will be available for the play-in tournament if his ailing right knee allows as Golden State coach Steve Kerr dismissed the notion that the Warriors would sit their superstar without a guaranteed spot in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Kerr said before Golden State’s game at Dallas on Monday night that Curry’s planned participation in practice a day earlier was put off by the medical staff. A six-game road trip ends against the Mavericks, and the Warriors will decide what’s next for Curry after they get home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all just part of the rehab and all the different testing he does,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cJust pushed back a day or two.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Warriors are in 10th place in the Western Conference, and if they finish the season in that final spot in the play-in tournament, they would have to win two road games to make the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Curry hasn’t played since Jan. 30 as he deals with patella-femoral pain syndrome and bone bruising in the knee. Golden State entered Monday 23-16 with Curry and 10-22 without him, including a 1-8 stretch that has dropped them to 6-15 since his latest injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not chasing a play-in berth. We are squarely in the play-in no matter what we do,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cBottom line, if Steph is healthy, he\u2019s going to play because that\u2019s what we\u2019re here for. The chance to get into the playoffs is a big deal for us, big deal for Steph.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the same time, Kerr said if there’s any risk of longer-term damage to the knee, Curry won’t play. The 38-year-old leads the Warriors in scoring at 27.2 points per game.<\/p>\n
Kerr deflected the question of whether Curry was disappointed that his return to practice was put off at least two more days.<\/p>\n
Golden State had initially hoped he would return right after the All-Star break, and Curry sat out the All-Star Game this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a long haul,\u201d the coach said. \u201cHe\u2019s dying to get out there for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
This story is corrected to show the Warriors’ record at 23-16 when Stephen Curry plays, not 23-17.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/nba<\/p>\n
Schuyler Dixon, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS (AP) \u2014 Stephen Curry will be available for the play-in tournament if his ailing right knee allows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-556593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}