Stephen Curry came back on April 6 and immediately changed the feel of the Warriors, scoring 29 points in 26 minutes off the bench in a 117-116 loss to the Houston Rockets. He checked in with 4:54 left in the first quarter, and Golden State suddenly looked like a team that had found its star just in time.
Coach Steve Kerr was blunt about what that meant. “We’re back in the mix. We’re back in the fight with Steph,” he said after the game.
The return mattered because Curry had not played since January 30, and Golden State had spent much of that stretch looking like a team headed for the Western Conference’s 10th seed. That spot would send the Warriors on the road to face the ninth seed in the play-in, with another game against the winner of the 7-8 game needed to reach the eighth seed.
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Curry said the team can feel the urgency now. “We’re building towards it,” he said. “We have two meaningful games, hopefully, down the stretch.” He added that Golden State cannot coast through what remains. “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. “So yes, you can kind of feel it in the arena, too. It was a different vibe tonight.”
That different vibe came with a catch. The Warriors still lost, and the margin was one point. Kerr said he did not think there was a tougher defender for Curry to face in his first game back than Amen Thompson, then added, “Steph looked amazing.”
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The tension is that Golden State’s most important player is back, but the standings have already put the team on a narrow path. The Warriors had not looked like a postseason team since Curry went out with a knee issue, and they now have about a week and a half before the play-in tournament begins. They will need the version of Curry they saw against Houston to survive it.
