Warriors prevail after Curry leaves with injury
Golden State beats Houston after star hurts his tailbone
The Warriors, despite missing two players to the league’s coronavirus-related contact tracing, got 23 points from Jordan Poole and beat the Rockets 108-94 on Wednesday night at in Houston.
Stephen Curry had 18 points before leaving the game with a tailbone injury in the third quarter. Draymond Green had a triple-double (16 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists) and Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre Jr. combined for 36 points as Golden State (21-20) took care of business against the shorthanded Rockets (11-28). Houston lost its 18th game in a row.
“That was an important game for us,” coach Steve Kerr said. “We’re coming off a really tough stretch of games, and having lost five of six, we needed to take care of business tonight and we did.”
For the Warriors, the win comes at an important time. They entered the night having lost five of their last six games — including a blowout to the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday — and were looking to start a threegame trip in positive fashion.
Complicating matters hours before tipoff, center James Wiseman and forward Eric Paschall entered the health and safety protocol. With two pillars of their bench quarantined in their Houston hotel rooms, the Warriors managed to pull away with a reconstructed second unit led by Poole (23 points on 8-for-16 shooting).
Poole’s layup through traffic capped a 22-7 run and gave Golden State a 63-42 lead with 2:13 remaining in the second quarter. That was the decisive run of the game, as the Warriors shot 46.1% and assisted on 33 of 41 made baskets.
After taking a hard fall after a 3-pointer at the end of the third quarter, Curry went to the locker room and did not re-enter the game. His status for Friday’s game against Memphis was unclear immediately following the game.
The Rockets — without key contributors John Wall, Eric Gordon, Victor Oladipo and PJ Tucker — were paced by guard Kevin Porter Jr. (25 points) while center Christian Wood finished with 21 points, nine rebounds and two assists.