When four-time scoring champion Kevin Durant went down with a knee injury against his hometown Washington Wizards back on February 28, immediate panic set in for Dub Nation.
Fortunately, Durant’s injury wasn’t season ending.
Story going online now: Golden State is targeting Saturday's home date with New Orleans for Kevin Durant's return, league sources say.
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) April 3, 2017
The Warriors began to struggle without the services of Durant, losing four of the next six games. However, after a close 106-104 win against the Sixers things started to change.
Golden State is currently on an 11-game winning streak.
While this isn’t the same team as last year, they still have Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green, who were the catalyst of their record-breaking regular season a year ago.
Sure, you’d like to have Durant healthy every night, but in a way, this injury may have been a blessing in disguise because it’s forced Steph to be Steph again. Yes, the two-time MVP was playing well with Durant, but with him being unavailable, we’re seeing the Steph we’ve come to love.
There may be some trouble plugging Durant back in at first, but head coach Steve Kerr isn’t concerned about that.
“Hopefully we can get him in for a couple of regular-season games,” Kerr told reporters. “We’ll see how it goes. We’ll see what the training staff says. I’m not too worried about incorporating him because he’s been with us all season and fit right in from the beginning. So whenever he gets back, we’ll plug him back in there and watch his minutes.”
“That’s the main thing,” Kerr added, “just watching him physically. I’m not worried about incorporating him into our schemes and all that stuff.”
The Warriors will play host to the Pelicans this Saturday.