Steph Curry has a quad contusion. How will the 10-10 Warriors fare?

SAN FRANCISCO – Sort of A narrow defeat of the Golden State Warriors 104-100 wasn’t the worst thing that happened to the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night. Stephen Curry suffered a right quad contusionthe injury, which he suffered at about 4:21 of the fourth quarter when he collided with Alperen Sengun, the team reported on the screen the big man sets.

Curry tried to play through the injury as he was visibly limping, but would later go to the locker room just before the final siren.

But while your star player’s injury is bad news, Curry’s illness certainly could have been worse. After the game, head coach Steve Kerr expressed relief that Curry’s quad contusion was minor it was not something more serious.

“When I heard it was a quad, I was actually relieved,” Kerr said. “Better than an ankle or a knee. Hopefully he’ll recover quickly and be fine, but we’ve got to hold the fort.”

Whether or not Curry is on the mend is too early to tell. The double MVP is scheduled for an MRI to make sure the initial diagnosis of the injury is correct and to see if there is any other damage. Until then, Curry’s availability for the foreseeable future is up in the air.

Curry missing time is not new territory for Golden State. However, it doesn’t exactly come at a time when the Warriors can afford an injury. Al Horford remains out with a sciatic nerve injury. Jonathan Kuminga is making progress but is still far from returning to the floor. They also lost Gary Payton II to a sprained right ankle.

The Warriors just don’t feel capable of going a stretch without Curry at this point. But they will have to. The only question is how?

Jimmy Butler’s assessment of how the Warriors will survive

Of course, with Curry potentially short of time, all eyes turn to his co-star Jimmy Butler, the self-proclaimed “Robin” to Curry’s “Batman.” Situations like these are exactly why the Warriors sacrificed Andrew Wiggins and traded for Butler. Even at 36, Butler is a one-man system that Golden State can theoretically play through.

It might not look pretty, especially considering how much smoother Butler plays when he’s splitting the court. That might not be sustainable, given his age and the stage he’s at in his career. But they gave him two years, $121 million to be their security. Golden State will turn to him just like they did last season when Curry missed time. This means a much more thoughtful style; more Butler in the post, controlling every possession, more Butler chasing his shots to make up for the ones Curry usually takes.

however, Butler made a point to emphasize that they shouldn’t put everything on Curry’s shoulders, hinting that they could use Curry’s absence as an opportunity to fix their dependence on him. The reporter asked Butler what they would need to change if they had to play without Curry. The five-time All-NBA player didn’t hesitate.

“We’re going to have to be damn near perfect,” Butler said. “We’re not going to have a definitive savior for our team. Even when he’s on the floor, we’re going to have to do our job because we make the game difficult. As great a basketball player as he is, he has a really tough job every day if he has to be the Batman of all Batmans and save us every night. That’s not what he’s here to do.”

Guys who need to step up

Turning to Butler is the obvious solution, but Golden State also simply needs their players to step up, especially offensively. Roleplayers are horribly off the pace from deep. The Warriors went 2-0-for-21 from distance in the second half and while some of those misses came from Curry, Butler and Draymond Green, it’s not like the role players have been lighting it up lately.

Shooter Buddy Hield struggled to find his shot. There were signs of hope that he would return to form after he had 20 points on 4-of-8 shooting from beyond the arc in a huge win over Utah. But his zero points on three misses from the 3-point line seems to signal that those 20 points were an anomaly.

But Hield isn’t the only one; Brandin Podziemski has also had a rough start to the season. His indecisiveness seems to have returned, a tendency he seemed to overcome in the second half of last season. And while his stats in the loss to the Rockets paint a somewhat positive picture, 14 points on 6/11 FG and 2/3 3FG, it leaves out some rough patches for the third-year guard.

Chief among them was when he missed three consecutive free throws, one of which came courtesy of a Rockets lane foul, as the Warriors lost 93-91. And on the Rockets’ next possession, Podziemski died on a screen while guarding Sheppard, allowing the Houston guard to bury a wide-open mid-range jumper. To Podziemski’s credit, he had stretches where he played well, when he didn’t work too hard and play in the flow of the attack, which Kerr said he talked to him.

What the players believe they should do

For Podziemski, he echoed Kerr’s advice not to take on too much alone.

“Everybody has to do just a little bit more,” Podziemski said. “Nothing too drastic. Everyone is playing a little bit better and collectively, and you hope that’s good enough to win.”

For Green, that starts with cleaning up the little things that didn’t work well when they had Curry.

“We can’t turn the ball over, we can’t get offensive rebounds, we have to start with that because you have to give yourself a way to make up for all those points, so start there. Take care of the little things you can take care of and then figure everything else out from there.”

It’s not rocket science in the sense that the Warriors know exactly what to do if Curry misses time. But it’s kind of rocket science in the sense that even if they know what needs to be done, can they actually do it? Knowing it is one thing, doing it is another.

As shocking as it was, the Warriors must have been relieved to hear it was just a concussion. But that sense of dread that literally everyone associated with the Warriors felt when we didn’t know what kind of injury Curry had? That feeling should be an indication of how everyone feels about the Warriors’ chances of weathering the storm without their all-encompassing, gravitational supernova.

They know the formula. And in theory, they have staff. It’s just about making it happen.