SALT LAKE CITY — Seth Curry hadn’t played basketball in over three months while dealing with a painful sciatica issue and yet he still came into Monday’s 119-116 loss to the Utah Jazz and immediately started hitting shots. At some point during his 12-minute stint, in which he racked up 13 points, Jazz guard Elijah Harkless asked him, “How you come in and make shots right away?”
The veteran couldn’t help but smile while telling the story after the game. His return was one of a handful of positives in a loss to the tanking Jazz, who came in with a 19-45 record. Monday’s performance, in which it looked far too often like the Warriors were just going through the motions defensively, erased some of the good vibes the group was feeling after a surprising win over the Houston Rockets last Thursday and a close loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday.
The good news is that Curry, who hadn’t played since Dec. 4, and acknowledged there was a chance he might not play at all this season as he went through the rehab process, is feeling good and is relieved to finally be back on the floor. For the first time since he suffered the injury, he described what kept him out for so long in the first place. Curry said the injury didn’t happen in a game, he just felt worse over a stretch following his first two games of the season.
“There was like a month where I really couldn’t move,” said Curry, who added that he’d started to make a turn in his recovery around the All Star break. “I was just laying at home. And then once the pain went away I was able to rehab and try to get all my movement back, but it’s been tough … I just had a minor pain in my back, it got worse, worse, and then it just hit its tipping point.”
Curry, who led the league in 3-point shooting last season at 45.6 percent with the Charlotte Hornets, hit two 3s on Monday. Warriors coach Steve Kerr was pleased by what he saw from the veteran guard.
“Seth was great,” Kerr said. “It was really fun to have him out there. He can light it up in a hurry.”
The problem for the Warriors on Monday was that they gave up way too many points in a hurry. The depleted Jazz shot 48.2 percent from the field and played with more of an edge. The Warriors had eight players in double figures, but their issue all night was not playing with enough defensive intensity to slow down a Jazz team that only had extra ping pong balls to lose.
Warriors veteran forward De’Anthony Melton said “you got to respect everybody out there,” and far too often on Monday it felt as if the Warriors were letting the Jazz just get whatever they wanted offensively. For a Warriors team that had been playing so hard over the last couple weeks without Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler and several others, Monday’s perfomance felt like an outlier. But it was a bad time to have a bad game; the loss pushed the Warriors back to .500 and dropped them behind the LA Clippers in the eighth spot in the Western Conference standings.
“Sometimes going against us is teams’ Finals,” Melton said. “It’s a big game for some dudes. I think they notice we got dudes down too. They came out there and they was free flowin’ and they was firing and they was aggressive and they didn’t care what was going on in terms of tanking and everything like that. They was trying to play for their lives so I think they played with a little more urgency and a little more and a little more hunger and fight that we did.”
The Warriors should have more fight on Tuesday night against the Chicago Bulls. For the first time all season, Melton, who scored 22 points in 20 minutes versus the Jazz, is expected to play on both ends of a back to back. Veteran big men Al Horford and Kristaps Porziņģis are also expected to play Tuesday, as is rookie guard Will Richard, who has missed the last four games because of an ankle injury.
Moses Moody’s status remains a little more unclear. He said before Monday’s game that his wrist injury happened during a loss to the Clippers last week, and an MRI revealed a sprain on the wrist of his shooting hand.
The Warriors are expected to give another update on Stephen Curry’s ailing knee later this week. He has not played since leaving a Jan. 30 loss to the Detroit Pistons, and it remains unclear when he’ll return.
In the short term, Kerr didn’t sound concerned that the loss to the Jazz would linger, but that remains to be seen. They are now 5-10 during this stretch without Stephen Curry.
Despite Monday night’s setback, the Warriors’ locker room was still relatively upbeat. They know they’ve been playing hard and they know that having Melton and Seth Curry back gives them an emotional boost. Melton smiled while describing what it means to be able to play the second game of this back to back on Tuesday.
“Just to be able to battle with my team every night,” Melton said. “That’s what I strive for and that’s what I want to do so to be able to have that is huge.”