SAN FRANCISCO– The Golden State Warriors have caught the bit of the injury bug right as they start their important extended homestand. Veteran center Al Horford, who left midway through the narrow loss to the Portland Trail Blazers with a right hamstring injury, will miss at least the next three games with a sciatic-related injury, per head coach Steve Kerr.
“Al [Horford's] going to be out for a little bit, so Trayce [Jackson-Davis] will see some more minutes,” Kerr said. “He'll miss the next three games for sure.”
According to the team, Horford will be re-evaluated in one week. As for Horford's frontcourt mate, Draymond Green, the Dubs' defensive heartbeat is officially questionable for Monday's matchup with the Utah Jazz due to a mild foot sprain he also suffered in the Blazers' loss. Kerr told reporters Green might have landed on it awkwardly. That potentially leaves Golden State without its two best big men, right after Portland outrebounded them 52-32 on the glass.
Horford and Green's injuries also come at a time when the Warriors' depth is running thin. Forward Jonathan Kuminga, who has missed the past five games with bilateral patellar knee tendonitis, remains “day-to-day” based on what the Dubs' training staff has told Kerr. But Kuminga is expected to miss more games in the near future, as he was only able to “barely” participate in the Warriors' live drill work today at practice.
“I don't know where [he's at], he's got to tell you where he is [with the injury]. He's not moving well. So, training staff, working with them, I have no idea what he's doing,” Kerr said.
A reporter asked a follow-up regarding Kerr's concern level for Kuminga moving forward.
“I just talked to the training staff, and they tell me it's day-to-day. Talking to JK [Kuminga], he said he's not moving that well. So I can't tell you what the outlook is.”
The strangeness of Kuminga's injury
Kuminga's injury is nothing but strange, especially considering how Kerr sounded hopeful about his timeline just days earlier.
“I think JK would tell you that [outlook] better than I could.” Kerr continued in his media availability. “He needs to feel better and be able to move better before we put him out there. Maybe we'll get some imaging done, but yeah, we've got to figure it out… I was hoping he was gonna scrimmage today, and he didn't do that, so it's obviously worse than we thought. But I haven't talked to him.”
As Kerr detailed Kuminga's injury, there was the sense that the communication between the two is a bit lacking. Kerr told reporters to ask Kuminga about his injury for more clarity. And while Kerr said he talked to Kuminga about how he's not moving well, he also said he hadn't talked to him in regards to what he's doing with the training staff.
It's no secret that Kuminga and Kerr have had their difficulties in the past. The latest one seems to be Kuminga feeling like the “scapegoat” to Golden State's problems when Kerr moved him to the bench during the Dubs' rough patch two weeks ago. The vagueness surrounding Kuminga's knee injury only seems to heighten the strangeness of his whole situation. Still, Kerr expressed that the Warriors need him and that his play has been missed.
“We missed him. We played in Miami, missing all our guys. The other night, we were tired, like, we needed him. But he's got to get right before he can play, obviously.”
With Horford set to miss time, Kuminga's injury a huge question mark, and Green banged up, Golden State will look deep into its bench to find stopgap answers.
