Prior to Sunday's game vs the Jazz, Steve Kerr turned some heads when he made the following declaration about Steph Curry:
"There's no way he's playing in the first round. There's no way."
About 90 minutes later, Curry took the podium and said:
"Hopefully I prove what coach said wrong."
On Wednesday evening, Kerr explained why he said what he said during an interview on KNBR 680.
"Number 1 -- we gotta be ready to play without him. Whether he plays in Game 6 of Round 1 or Game 4 of Round 2 -- we don't know. But we do know we're going to have to play a lot of playoff games without him. So let's prepare for that.
"Number 2 -- I want to take some pressure off of him. We're not gonna rush him back and I don't want him asked every single day, 'how you feeling? When do you think you're gonna come back?'
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"Number 3 -- it's not like my announcement is the official announcement and now he's out. If he comes back, great. And if he proves me wrong and the doctors say he can come back -- then great.
"But let's just not go through that process every single day ... the chances are this is a five to six week injury. That's historically what it is for people. Let's just lay that out there and look at the facts. That's probably what we're looking at."
Makes perfect sense.
1) this puts zero pressure on Steph to "rush back" = smart
2) lets the rest of the players accept that they won't have Steph and they can begin to mentally prepare for this https://t.co/gXtBpjb3Jw— Drew Shiller (@DrewShiller) March 25, 2018
Curry will be re-evaluated on Saturday, April 14.
The Warriors will play their first playoff game either that day or on Sunday the 15th.
Drew Shiller is the co-host of Warriors Outsiders. Follow him on Twitter @DrewShiller
