NBA

Stephen Curry now envisioning way-early return date

The Golden State Warriors haven’t missed much of a beat without reigning MVP Stephen Curry, advancing to the Western Conference semifinals against the Blazers. Well, it might not be too long before we see Curry, who is recovering from a sprained MCL in his right knee, back on the court.

Curry was interviewed by ESPN’s Lisa Salters during the Warriors’ Game 1 against the Blazers on Sunday and he sounded pretty confident that he could be back much sooner than anyone thought.

“To me they’re pretty good,” Curry said when asked what are the chances of him playing in Saturday’s Game 3.

Curry resumed light shooting without movement and hopes to scrimmage later next week. Despite the strides Curry has made, Warriors coach Steve Kerr is remaining cautious.

“It just depends how his week goes,” Kerr said. “We’ll just monitor him and see how it goes and hopefully get him back at some point. It’s nice to have that long break between 2 and 3.”

Curry initially suffered the injury in Game 4 against the Rockets last Sunday. After an MRI revealed the extent of the injury, Warriors GM Bob Myers estimated that Curry would be out two weeks.

“It’s all speculation,” Kerr said. “As Bob said from the beginning, the two-week timetable was just kind of a random guess more than anything based on past history of these MCL injuries. So, we don’t really know, but that’s the hope, is that by the middle of next week we’ll get him back in more basketball-type movements.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.