Golden State faces a rare playoff test: Life without Steph Curry

Improbably, Golden State beat a younger, higher-seeded NBA playoff opponent without its best player. 

Their challenge? Do it again and again — for at least a week.

After Warriors superstar Stephen Curry suffered a Grade 1 hamstring strain in Tuesday’s Game 1 victory at Minnesota, he will be re-evaluated in one week, the team said.

Based on the schedule of the conference semifinals, that timeline likely will lead the Warriors to be without Curry for the next three games, if not longer. Should the series reach a Game 5 on May 14, the series will take three days off before Game 6, a potential break for Curry’s recovery.

The 37-year-old Curry, the most prolific three-point shooter in NBA history and the cornerstone around which the Warriors four-championship run was built, leaves no ordinary void. And for his team, it poses no ordinary challenge, as Golden State has rarely before been forced to play without him in the postseason.

Though the predominant image of Curry’s first seasons in the NBA was of him on the sideline, struggling to deal with recurring ankle injuries, since undergoing ankle surgeries in 2011 and 2012, Curry has become an extremely durable playoff fixture. Since 2013, he has played in 155 postseason games while missing only 12.

He had gone seven years without a playoff absence, a stretch of 65 consecutive appearances.

That consistency was perhaps why, despite their stunning Game 1 win, the tone of Golden State’s postgame interviews was at times mournful rather than celebratory. His team understood it was about to deal with a challenge it had rarely encountered.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr recounted Curry’s mood at halftime as “absolutely crushed.”

Seeing Curry injured was a “little deflating,” Draymond Green said. Losing Curry means more than losing his 40% three-point shooting during these playoffs, which exceeds his career average. Curry’s mere presence pulls defenders toward him and away from teammates, an effect that is described in the NBA as “gravity” and which creates openings for others.

Because the Warriors have rarely needed to compensate without Curry during the postseason, there is little precedent pointing to how Kerr might adjust his playoff rotation for a multi-game absence. But the Curry-less Game 1 victory showed something of a blueprint, one that shifts the burden onto the 35-year-old Green, the team’s longtime defensive disruptor, and scorers Jimmy Butler and Buddy Hield, who combined for 44 points.

In many ways, this is the reason the Warriors traded with Miami for Butler at midseason — a bet that the 35-year-old’s All-Star-caliber talent and past playoff heroics while leading Miami to two NBA Finals appearances, could provide a margin for error for a Warriors franchise that is nearing the end of its dynastic run anchored by Curry and Green. Butler added 11 rebounds and eight assists to his 20 points.

Whether Hield and Butler can continue to replace Curry’s scoring will be a focus for the next week, but his team’s path to victory Tuesday and in the future appears on the defensive end. Minnesota scored only 11 points in the second quarter as part of a 31-point first half while missing all 15 of its first-half three-pointers. That poor shooting, and Golden State’s defense, led the three-point-centric Timberwolves to play out of character. Two-thirds of its shots came inside the three-point arc. They are now 4-0 when three-pointers account for around 40% or more of their total shots, and 0-2 when less.

In the second half, backup guard Pat Spencer — a former top collegiate lacrosse player who had played sparingly previously in this postseason — added to that effort with two steals off the bench. Jonathan Kuminga, a former first-round draft pick who was effectively out of Golden State’s rotation just one round earlier, was among the cast of reserves and backups who held together late leads and will be called upon to do the same again.

The Timberwolves are expected to be sharper. Their coach criticized the lack of tone-setting performance by star Anthony Edwards, who missed his first 10 shots, and Minnesota’s “diabolical” fast-break decision-making, which turned 18 Golden State turnovers into just 10 points.

It had other self-inflicted errors, too.

Of its 28 three-pointers taken when the closest defender was at least four feet away — what the NBA classifies as “open” and “wide-open” shots — it made just five.

It was enough to allow Golden State to hang on for 24 second-half minutes without their star. Whether they can pull it off again for potentially at least three more games will decide the series.