Stephen Curry is going to miss some time.
The Golden State Warriors star is set to be ruled out of Thursday night’s Game 2 against the Minnesota Timberwolves with a Grade 1 left hamstring strain, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania.
The Warriors reportedly expect Curry to miss at least a week.
Curry exited Tuesday night’s Game 1 win in Minnesota with 8:19 left in the second quarter and was quickly ruled out.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said after the 99-88 victory that Curry would undergo an MRI on Wednesday.
“With a hamstring, it’s hard to imagine that he would play Thursday,” Kerr said.
Curry, 37, had not previously suffered a muscle strain during his 16-year NBA career, making his recovery timeline for this injury a bit of a mystery. A Grade 1 strain is the lowest level of severity.
The sharp-shooting Curry scored 13 points on 5-of-9 shooting in 13 minutes in Tuesday’s win, which put the Warriors up 1-0 in the best-of-seven second-round series.
“I talked to him at halftime,” Kerr said. “He’s obviously crushed, but the guys picked him up and played a great game. Obviously, we’re all concerned about Steph, but it’s part of the game.”
The Warriors have one day off between every game from Games 2 through 5. They would have three days off between Game 5, which is scheduled for May 14, and Game 6, which is set for May 18.
Game 5, if necessary, would be exactly one week from Wednesday.
Curry grabbed his hamstring after finishing a floater at the 8:48 mark of the second quarter on Tuesday. He found Draymond Green for a 3-pointer on the next possession before leaving the game for good.
“I didn’t see what happened,” Green said. “I also didn’t see that he had grabbed his hamstring. I just saw him limping a bit, so I walked over to him to tell him, ‘Good pass,’ and he was kind of walking toward the locker room.”
Curry averaged 24.5 points, 4.4 rebounds and 6.0 assists per game in the regular season, then scored 24.0 points per game in the Warriors’ first-round series against the Houston Rockets.
The injury occurred two days after Curry ran 1.99 miles in the Warriors’ Game 7 win in Houston on Sunday — the most he’s ever run in a game on record — ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said on his “Hoop Collective” podcast. Windhorst mentioned that as an observation, not as a medical attribution.
A four-time NBA champion, Curry averages 27.8 points per game in the playoffs for his career.
Buddy Hield led the Warriors with 24 points in Game 1, while Jimmy Butler added 20.
“We know this series will get tougher and tougher,” said Green, who scored 18 points. “Hopefully we get Steph back.”
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