OAKLAND, Calif. — Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry will not play Saturday night against the Dallas Mavericks after being given the game off to rest.
“Rick [Celebrini, Warriors director of Sports Medicine and Performance] and I have been talking about it the last couple weeks,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said before the game. “Steph is there for us every single game. And the way he moves and the energy he expends, he’s just — it’s a great night to give him a night off in the back-to-back. So, tonight’s the night, so we got to make sure we cover our bases without him.”
This will mark the 12th game of the season Curry has missed. Veteran point guard Shaun Livingston and longtime center Andrew Bogut also will miss Saturday’s game to rest.
“More minutes for Quinn [Cook] for sure,” Kerr said of replacing Curry on Saturday. “And we’ll have Damion Lee up from the G-League. We’ll play Andre [Iguodala] at some point guard. We’ll mix and match. We’ll see what we’ve got. Kevin [Durant] and Draymond [Green] will handle the ball quite a bit.
“But things are different without your two main points guards, so you got to be able to take care of the ball and get organized, so that’s the plan.”
Kerr acknowledged that with another home game on Sunday against the Detroit Pistons, there could be more resting in the Warriors’ future.
“We won’t know for sure exactly what we’re going to do until after the game tonight,” Kerr said. “But more than likely, there will be something that happens tomorrow, but we’ll let you know then.”