Warriors’ coach Steve Kerr provides update on Steph Curry’s injury

SAN FRANCISCO – Steph Curry may have been away from the postgame podium after Thursday night’s victory over the Knicks, but the team does not expect their franchise player to miss any time.

“Steph, he’s good, yeah,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after Friday’s practice. “He’s fine (for Saturday’s game against the Hornets).”

The Warriors are winners of 10 of their last 14, and as always, Curry has had an outsized impact on the run of positive results. 

He has averaged 26.9 points per game while also averaging 6.2 assists per night during that stretch.

Though Curry avoided a serious injury, the same could not be said for forward Gui Santos, who exited the victory over the Knicks with a left ankle sprain. 

“Won’t play (Saturday), and it looks like it’s not a really bad sprain, so I’ll give you an update in a couple of days,” Kerr said. “It’s a big loss, the energy, the offensive rebounding, but also the size, when we go to him and Gary Payton II, we’re generally playing him at the four next to Draymond.”

Santos has become a fixture in the rotation over the last 10 games, averaging 3.2 rebounds in around 16 minutes per game, a number that understates the impact he has made with his hustle plays. 

Aside from Santos, though, the Warriors are expected to be at full strength for Saturday’s game.

Importance of practice

Kerr is a product of another era, the 1990s, a time when teams practiced regularly even during the heart of the season. Teams nowadays, with a schedule that rarely has the extended two-to-four day gaps between games that were once plentiful, practice at a much lower frequency than Kerr would like.

So during the team’s current eight-game homestand, chock full of one-day breaks between tipoffs, the Warriors’ coach has made sure to take advantage by having practices as often as he is allowed. 

There is good reason for this.

“We’re sharper for what we did for just over 20 minutes,” Kerr said. “It may not seem like much, but it matters, just to clean up little details, they go into the game tomorrow a little sharper with our execution.”

When the team travels, finding time to get those practices in is much more difficult, so Kerr has been happy to get a few practices in when the schedule allows.

Horford finding his rhythm

The long homestand has done more than just given the coaching staff more opportunities to put together practices. It has also helped Al Horford finally find something of a rhythm after spending the first third of the season dealing with injuries and restrictions with back-to-backs. 

“I’m just not really overthinking plays, and I’m just going out there and playing and executing the things I need to do,” Horford said. “You get into a routine and you can stay consistent, and avoiding those back-to-backs are always helpful, since I can’t play them.”

Horford has played the past six games, with the Warriors’ last back-to-back being Jan. 2 and Jan. 3, where he played the first game and sat the second. He has made 8 of 23 triples during that stretch.