Warriors' Stephen Curry, Jonathan Kuminga get injury updates for Thunder game
11/26/2024 08:14 PM
The Golden State Warriors will face the Oklahoma City Thunder in a battle of the top two teams in the Western Conference. After losing two straight games, including an improbable blown game to the Brooklyn Nets, the Bay Area squad have fallen to second place at 12-5. Moreover, the Warriors are dealing with injuries, according to a pregame injury report: De’Anthony Melton is out for the season with an ACL injury, while Stephen Curry and Jonathan Kuminga are questionable.
Per the injury report submitted to the league, Curry is dealing with pain in his knee while Kuminga is managing an undisclosed illness.
Warriors vs. Thunder
When the Warriors beat the Thunder a few weeks ago, they were riding the high of their hot start that propelled them to the top of the standings. Back then, Buddy Hield couldn’t miss, and their bench unit kept winning, with Jonathan Kuminga playing well, even as Stephen Curry sat out a few games due to injury.
It’s safe to say that the Warriors had adapted well to losing Klay Thompson in the offseason.
Moreover, they might have improved without him, as coach Steve Kerr had to go ten-deep to manufacture wins, though some players like Moses Moody still had limited roles.
Still, that was then. Now, they have cooled off, which usually happens during an 82-game season, and they play a Thunder team that has remained consistent despite Chet Holmgren sitting out with a hip injury.
It’s still too early to tell, but fans might also treat this game as a playoff preview, a chance to see where their team stacks up against another contender.
However, the Warriors-Thunder game also marks the beginning of a tough five-game stretch against a series of Western Conference contenders: the Suns, Nuggets, Rockets, and Timberwolves.
The Warriors are Finals-bound?
If you ask former Warriors GM Bob Myers, though, he’d say that the Thunder are really the only major obstacle for the Warriors to reach the Finals.
Similar to 2022, when the Warriors won the NBA championship, Myers felt that the typically competitive Western Conference is wide-open, with no dominant team putting fear in everyone else.
“I still think [the Thunder are] going to be hard to get around but that’s the only team,” Myers said, via Adam Taylor of Warriors Wire. “That’s the only one I see as an obstacle for the Warriors now.”
However, the difference between that 2022 title squad and the 2024 team is that the former had a still-productive Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole–two players who shared the scoring load with Stephen Curry.
Can the Chef rely on Buddy Hield, Lindy Waters III, and Brandin Podziemski to carry the burden in the postseason, when the game slows down and the scoring gets harder?
The post Warriors’ Stephen Curry, Jonathan Kuminga get injury updates for Thunder game appeared first on ClutchPoints.
