Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler to play in Warriors-Nuggets game

SAN FRANCISCO – The Warriors will have their two superstars in the team’s first home game in two weeks. 

Steph Curry (left pelvic contusion) and Jimmy Butler (left forearm strain) were both listed as questionable on the early-afternoon injury report, and coach Steve Kerr declined to say whether they would play on Friday night against visiting Denver. 

“I’m hopeful that they’ll play, but we’ll wait and see,” Kerr said. 

The team later announced Curry and Butler as starters on social media.

Golden State beat the Lakers in Los Angeles on Thursday before making the quick trip back to the Bay Area for the second game of the team’s penultimate back-to-back of the season. 

The Warriors (45-31) are the fifth seed in the Western Conference, a half-game in front of sixth-seeded Memphis (45-32) and the No. 7 seed Minnesota (45-32) in the standings. Denver (47-30) is the third seed. 

Curry has been nursing a bruised tailbone since a hard fall during the Warriors’ victory over Toronto on March 20, the team’s last home game. 

He missed the first two games of the recently completed trip, both losses, before playing in the last four road victories while wearing a piece of protective equipment. 

In Thursday’s 123-116 victory over Los Angeles, Curry hit the floor hard on several drives but finished the game. He scored 37 points. 

Butler left the Warriors bench in the third quarter while dealing with his injury, but he too returned and closed out the Warriors’ victory that kept the team out of the play-in spot. 

Butler told media after the game that he could get testing on his forearm, but Kerr said he did not know if Butler had undergone testing. 

Gary Payton II, who has missed the last four games with a left thumb injury, was also questionable but was upgraded to available. 

The Warriors find themselves in the same situation Denver did when the teams last played at Chase Center on March 17. 

MVP candidate Nikola Jokic and star guard Jamal Murray both sat out that game, but Archbishop Mitty alum Aaron Gordon scored 38 points to lead Denver to a surprising 114-105 victory and snapped Golden State’s seven-game winning streak. 

Kerr has high praise for Jokic

Kerr did not mince words when describing Jokic’s dominance a few hours before the Warriors played the center who is averaging a 29.7-point triple-double on sterling efficiency.

 

“It’s unfair to compare eras, but he’s the best center I’ve ever seen,” Kerr said. “I mean again, I played against Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar), so I’m kind of old, maybe one year I played against him, but I watched him, obviously, and Kareem couldn’t do all this stuff.”

Nuggets coach Mike Malone did not refute Kerr’s assessment. 

“Steve Kerr played the game a long time, and he’s been around a lot of winning basketball as a player and as a coach,” Malone said. “So obviously, Steve has great experiences to draw from, and as an older who has seen a lot of things.”