Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, who last played on Jan. 30, shoots during practice at Chase Center in San Francisco on Saturday. He is expected to be in the lineup Sunday for a game against the Rockets.
Benjamin Fanjoy/For the S.F. Chronicle
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry practices at Chase Center in San Francisco on Saturday. The team’s leading scorer at 27.2 points per game, he has been sidelined because of a knee issue since Jan. 30.
Benjamin Fanjoy/For the S.F. Chronicle
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry shoots during practice at Chase Center in San Francisco on Saturday.
Benjamin Fanjoy/For the S.F. Chronicle
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry takes a break during practice at Chase Center in San Francisco on Saturday.
Benjamin Fanjoy/For the S.F. Chronicle
The wait is over. Steph is back.
Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr announced Saturday that Stephen Curry is expected to return from a months-long absence for an Easter Sunday home game against the Rockets: “The plan is for him to play,” Kerr said. Anxiety over Curry’s return has bubbled for a while. Will he? Won’t he? Why should he?
Curry looks ready to scratch that basketball itch, is why. Saturday before his spurt of individual shooting drills, he crinkled a smile, laughed loudly, and bunched the No. 30 practice jersey over his face. The exact cause was unclear. But a weight appeared to lift. A lightness could be found where the heaviness of a losing season long resided, sans a healthy Curry.
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Well before his team was guaranteed a regular-season record at or under .500, he planned to be back in a week. Ten days, tops, he said. Then the so-called “runner’s knee” slowly revealed itself.
Frustration piled, and his timetable lengthened.
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“Every time I got on the court or tried to push it that first month, there was always, I call it a reaction,” Curry said.
“The patience then was tough just because it’s one of those injuries that you really just have to let rest. There’s nothing you can kind of push through. … It’s a different experience than most injuries that I’ve had.”
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Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry discusses his intention to return to the court Sunday for a game against the Rockets during a press conference at Chase Center on Saturday.
Benjamin Fanjoy/For the S.F. Chronicle
Curry last played on Jan. 30, and has missed 27 straight games since then. He participated in a pair of 5-on-5 scrimmages within a span of three days as part of this past week’s ramp-up.
He said his knee feels good. Hopefully, he said, it will stay that way when he wakes up Sunday. That’s how tenuous his rehab process has been.
Asked whether his ambiguous right knee injury may yet linger, Curry, 38, cited a “new normal” he needed to accept: “There’s nothing structurally wrong with my knee, so it’s not like I’m compromised out there. It is a new normal, though, if that makes sense. … 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 looks like going into next year. But right now, I kind of understand what the new normal is, and it’s good enough to play.”
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At minimum, ruminations of a potential shutdown shall cease. Kerr, who dodged other questions, including one inquiring about a minutes restriction, shot straight about why Curry will play again in what has increasingly appeared as a lost season.
“We owe it to our fans to get them the opportunity to watch Steph Curry play basketball this year,” Kerr said. “And Steph doesn’t even think twice about that. That’s what he wants. That’s what we want. That’s what our fans want. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Saddled with a 36-41 season to date, the Warriors have five games left until the NBA play-in tournament, for which they have clinched a spot.
Curry changes the way the sport is played whenever he steps on the floor. What that could look like with him playing next to 7-foot-2 stretch big Kristaps Porzingis, acquired via the Jonathan Kuminga trade, has folks in Chase Center on their toes. Curry especially.
Porzingis joined the Warriors on Feb. 5 when Curry already was out of commission.
“I was telling him, I don’t know how people are going to guard our pick-and-roll,” Curry said.
“Anytime you have talent like that and two guys that can demand attention, it’s always a good thing, to create good offense and help elevate whoever we’re out there with.”
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Even with Curry ready to rejoin his teammates, he acknowledged the weirdness of the Warriors’ standing as the 10th seed in the Western Conference.
Winning their last five games of the regular season wouldn’t change much. The ninth seed is the highest Golden State can get, meaning the Warriors will have to win two play-in games to make the playoffs, no matter what. This team’s ceiling is hard to calibrate.
Gary Payton II put it simply: “Now, Superman’s back,” Payton said, “so we’ll figure it out with that.”
Golden State has struggled to piece things together in Curry’s absence, managing just a 13-25 record playing without him this season. His absence was felt more deeply because of other injuries. The big ones: Jimmy Butler was ruled out for the season in January with a torn ACL and Moses Moody tore his left patellar tendon last month.
But maybe No. 30 heals all: “Hope, he just brings hope to everybody,” Kerr said. “The sun is shining a little brighter. The food tastes a little better. Steph is Steph.”
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Briefly: Veteran center Al Horford (calf), after a recent evaluation, has advanced in his on-court workouts and participated in a portion of Saturday’s team practice. Horford has missed 11 consecutive games. He will be evaluated again this coming week; the same goes for reserve center Quinten Post (foot), who was evaluated on Saturday.