OAKLAND – Stephen Curry said Monday that his left ankle, which was tweaked on Saturday, is feeling better and that he hopes to play Tuesday when the Warriors meet the Atlanta Hawks at Oracle Arena.
“Feeling pretty good,” he said. “Considering how it happened and how it felt after the game, I’ve made some progress. It’s still a little sore, but hopefully I’ll be ready for (Tuesday).”
Curry did not participate in practice Monday and was listed as “questionable” on the injury report released by the team that afternoon.
The seventh-year point guard rolled his ankle early in the third quarter of the Warriors’ 121-118 overtime victory over the Thunder in Oklahoma City when Thunder guard Russell Westbrook landed atop his ankle. Curry remained seated on the floor and immediately signaled for his teammates to foul so he could leave the game and get medical attention.
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He limped into the locker room with 10:29 left in the third quarter. He was re-taped but still had a slight limp when he returned with 5:10 left in the quarter. Yet he recovered well enough to play 19 of the 22 remaining minutes, scoring 31 points, including the game-winner in OT.
“If there’s one thing I know very well, it’s the ankle,” Curry said, referring to his history of ankle woes, including right ankle surgery in April of 2012. “I know how to get it re-taped, so I can take some pressure off it. Once I did some tests in the back, I knew I was fine to come back out and play and just deal with the soreness and the pain. There wasn’t really anything about instability or putting myself in jeopardy to injure it even more.”
Though Curry submerged his ankle in ice in the locker room after the game and walked with a pronounced limp, he said there was no discernable swelling by Monday.
Coach Steve Kerr said the plan is for the team to play it smart with the reigning MVP.
“We’re not going to do anything crazy, obviously,” he said. “We’re going to err on the side of caution. If he’s healthy enough to go, we’ll play him.”
“. . . It was a little worse (Sunday) and today he’s feeling OK. But we’ll just see how it goes for tomorrow.”
