Stephen Curry was back on the floor Sunday, and he made it count. After missing time with a knee issue, Curry returned for the Warriors and scored 29 points in 26 minutes off the bench in a 117-116 loss to the Houston Rockets.
Curry checked in with 4:54 left in the first quarter and immediately changed the feel of the game. He had not played since Jan. 30, but his first game back looked more like a live rehearsal for the postseason than a careful easing-in process.
The Warriors treated the night that way, too. With the play-in tournament coming up in a week and a half, they approached the Rockets game like a dress rehearsal, and Curry said the building felt different. “So yes, you can kind of feel it in the arena, too. It was a different vibe tonight,” he said.
That matters because Golden State appears headed for the Western Conference’s 10th seed, which would send it on the road to face the ninth seed in the play-in. Win that game, and the Warriors would still need another victory against the winner of the 7-8 game to reach the eighth seed and the first round.
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Coach Steve Kerr did not hide what Curry means to that chase. “We’re back in the mix. We’re back in the fight with Steph,” Kerr said, before adding that he did not think there was a tougher defender for Curry to face in his first game back than Amen Thompson. Kerr also said, “Steph looked amazing.”
Curry’s own message was less about relief than urgency. “We have two meaningful games, hopefully, down the stretch,” he said, and then made clear the Warriors cannot afford to coast through the final stretch. “It’s not like we can just sleepwalk through these last four games and not focus on details that’ll help us win a do-or-die game and then do it again,” Curry said.
The tension for Golden State is simple: Curry is back, and he still looks like the kind of player who can change a postseason path in a night. But the Warriors also wasted a 29-point return in a one-point loss, and the margin between a brief stay in the play-in and a longer run now looks as thin as it has all season.
