Following another poor performance, Stephen Curry’s health has come into question.
The Oklahoma City Thunder continued to shock the basketball world by once again blowing out the Golden State Warriors, with an 118-94 Game 4 victory in the Western Conference Finals. The win gave the underdog Thunder a commanding 3-1 series lead.
The Warriors aren’t playing as their usual dominant self. One the main factors in their struggles is the poor play of their MVP point guard. Curry scored 19 points on 20 shots in Game 4, including shooting just 2-10 from three-point range. While Curry looks like he’s laboring on the court, Golden State head coach Steve Kerr denied the reports that he’s injured.
“He’s not injured. He’s coming back from the knee,” Kerr told SI’s Ben Golliver. “He just had a lousy night. It happens, even to the best players.”
While Curry’s head coach denied the injury rumors, Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical reports the 28-year-old is playing at less than 100 percent.
“He’s playing at 70 percent, at best,” a source close to Curry told The Vertical. Curry refuses to make excuses, but privately the Thunder see something – no explosion, no ability to make the bigs switching onto him pay a price.
It’s clear Curry is struggling and doesn’t have the explosiveness he displayed over the regular season. It would come to no surprise if he was playing injured. But, perhaps as Kerr stated, Curry is just struggling. If that’s the case, it’s happening at the worst time for the Warriors. If Golden State doesn’t want to be known as the best team in regular season history to not win a championship, Curry’s got to play better. If he’s hurt, that might not be possible.