Golden State Warriors star Jimmy Butler suffered a pelvis and deep glute muscle contusion when he took a hard fall in Game 2 of their first-round series against the Houston Rockets on Wednesday, and he’s questionable to play in Game 3 on Saturday, the Warriors announced Friday. Butler had an MRI on Thursday.
At practice on Friday, Golden State coach Steve Kerr told reporters that “there’s a chance” that Butler will be available in Game 3.
“I’m relatively optimistic,” Kerr said. “I mean, Jimmy is Jimmy. We know he’s willing to play through anything. So we’ll see. This is a day-to-day thing, for sure, and we’ll see how he feels tomorrow.”
Kerr said that the coaching staff will have two rotations ready — one that includes Butler, one that does not. Butler was physically present at practice, but “he was off to the side,” Kerr said.
Butler suffered the injury in the first quarter of Golden State’s 109-94 loss in Houston. He went up for a rebound and was unintentionally undercut by Amen Thompson:
Stephen Curry took a fall just like that in March, and it cost him two games. Kerr said that that Butler’s injury is “very similar” to Curry’s, in that “it’s a pain-tolerance thing.”
The Warriors are fortunate that they’ll get a second day off before Game 3 on Saturday. That’s a bit of scheduling luck after they also had two days off between Games 1 and 2. Every hour that Butler is able to rest and receive treatment is significant.
If Butler can’t play in Game 3, or certainly if he’s out any longer than that (Game 4 is scheduled for Monday), the Warriors are in serious trouble. They might be in serious trouble anyway.
Even before Butler got hurt, the Warriors were being taken out of their game by Houston’s physicality on both ends. The officials are really letting these teams play — not just in this series but across the playoffs — and it is allowing a team like Houston to really rough up the Warriors, who are plenty tough in their own right but lack the athleticism that can make it a little easier to create space and get downhill against tight pressure.
Butler is really the only guy who can loosen some of this pressure, which, in the absence of a second star, falls entirely on Curry in the form of two and three defenders more or less trying to rip his limbs off. You can’t ever discount a crazy Curry performance, but, barring something crazy, Houston’s defense is probably too physical and disruptive for the Warriors to overcome without Butler.
The best-case scenario for the Warriors is that Butler can not only play in Game 3, but also play effectively. If he can’t do that, and the Warriors go down 2-1, they’ll have to hope he can do it in Game 4.
