NBA – Steph Curry injured, Rudy Gobert’s honest assessment: “It didn’t change a thing”

Par Pierre-Andréa Fraile | Journaliste sportif

Winners of their Game 1 against Minnesota (99-88), the Warriors can nevertheless lament the loss of Stephen Curry to injury during the match. Asked about this major setback, Rudy Gobert asserts that its impact was actually minimal.

If we were to simply go by the trend offered by the bookmakers, they arrived at Target Center as clear underdogs. After all, the Warriors were coming off a grueling series against Houston and had only had a day’s rest before facing the Timberwolves. Yet that didn’t stop them from winning (99-88), despite a major setback during the game.

Rudy Gobert speaks on Steph Curry’s Game 1 injury

Visibly bothered by his left adductor muscle, Stephen Curry left his partners and went to the locker room during the 2nd quarter of the game. In the end, he never returned to the floor. An injury that was anything but reassuring for the rest of the series, but which didn’t really change the course of Game 1, as Rudy Gobert himself confirmed in a press conference:

Rudy Gobert: Steph’s exit didn’t changed their tactical approach. At least, I haven’t seen anything to suggest that. Obviously, Steph means a lot to them, but they played as if their lives depended on it throughout the game. And I didn’t feel that way about us. As a result, we found ourselves behind in the score and after that, it was complicated.

More generally, the French pivot regrets the physical and mental setbacks suffered by his team. According to him, the outcome of this game would have been decided as follows:

Rudy Gobert: There were good things and bad things. They were aggressive early on and we had to chase the score afterwards. (…)

We have to be prepared to play a high-intensity game against them. I think that tonight, even though we’d prepared for it in training, we weren’t ready for that kind of intensity. They force you to work, and if you’re not mentally ready, they take advantage of that.

Fortunately for the Wolves, Gobert seems to know the keys to bounce back in Game 2, to be held this Thursday at Target Center :

Rudy Gobert: We want to win and we respect these guys. It’s not like we disrespect them. We just have to focus on the right things, and when we do, when we make the right choices offensively and play for each other, we manage to do great things.