Stephen Curry Out at Least Two Weeks With Oblique Tear After Walking Off in Houston

Stephen Curry will miss at least two weeks after an MRI confirmed an oblique abdominal tear, the Golden State Warriors announced on Thursday. The injury ended his night 5:35 into Wednesday’s 115-108 loss to the Houston Rockets, when Curry grabbed at his right side after a three-pointer and walked to the locker room, and it ended Golden State’s eight-game winning streak on the same night Marcus Smart was ejected for throwing a punch at Charles Bassey.

What happened to Stephen Curry?

An MRI confirmed he suffered an oblique abdominal tear, and the Warriors announced it on Thursday, November 12. Curry will be re-evaluated in two weeks, Reuters reports, and the team has not set a return date beyond that. It is the kind of injury that does not come with a fixed absence: the re-evaluation is the next fact, and everything after it depends on what the scan shows.

How did Curry get hurt?

It happened in pieces across the first six minutes, then all at once. Curry had a collision with Rockets forward Amen Thompson earlier in the game when he drove to the hoop on an attempted layup, USA Today reports, and then he fought off a screen against Rockets centre Alperen Sengun. Moments later he curled around a screen and put up a three-pointer. As soon as he landed and stepped backwards, he grabbed at his right side, near his hip. He had scored three points on 1-of-3 shooting by that point. He walked off during a timeout, clearly grimacing, and the Warriors ruled him out with right abdominal soreness minutes into the second quarter.

How long will Curry be out?

At least two weeks, and the honest answer is that nobody knows beyond that yet. The Warriors said only that he would be re-evaluated in two weeks, which is a check-in, not a comeback date. The context for why that date matters is last season: Golden State went 13-26 in the 39 games Curry missed, the New York Post reports. A two-week absence covers a meaningful stretch of a five-game road trip that started in Houston, and the re-evaluation will decide whether it stays at two weeks or grows.

What did Steve Kerr say about the injury?

Kerr said Curry told him he had tweaked something in his abdominal area and had never done it before. “Concern is high, but I have no idea the extent of the injury,” Kerr said after the game, USA Today reports. Curry did speak to teammates at halftime before leaving the arena to get the MRI, the New York Post reports. The “never done it before” line is the telling part: at 38, in his 18th season, Curry had no reference point for what he was feeling, and neither did his coach.

Who fills in while Curry is out?

Brandin Podziemski and De’Anthony Melton will carry more of the backcourt load, Warriors Wire reports, and the Houston game gave an early look at how that goes. Yaxel Lendeborg led Golden State with 25 points and 10 rebounds after Curry left, and Podziemski added 19. The Warriors get Thursday off before meeting Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs on Friday night, which is the first full game of the Curry-less stretch. The roster around them is already thin: Jimmy Butler has missed the start of the season rehabbing the torn anterior cruciate ligament he suffered in January 2026, and the team is also dealing with injuries to Moses Moody and the absence of Kristaps Porzingis, whose whereabouts the Warriors have been unable to pin down.

What does the injury mean for the Warriors?

It takes away the hottest scorer in the league at the moment his team needed him most. Curry averaged 32.6 points on 52.8 percent shooting during the eight-game winning streak, Warriors Wire reports, with 40 or more points in two of those games. He entered Wednesday averaging 30.6 points, second in the NBA behind only Luka Doncic’s 39.3, and converting three-pointers at 45.7 percent, which would be a career high. His previous four games went 34, 29, 41 and 25 points. Curry had already survived one scare this season, when an ankle problem at an open practice looked worse than it turned out to be, but this one has a diagnosis and a timeline, and the Warriors are 8-4 with their best player watching from the sideline.

What else happened in the Rockets game?

The Curry injury was only the first incident of a strange night in Houston. Late in the third quarter, with 21 seconds left, Marcus Smart threw a right hook at Charles Bassey, was ruled a flagrant 2 and ejected, and walked to the locker room before the ruling was announced. Houston won 115-108. Curry’s shooting had already produced one of the season’s signature moments against the Lakers, when he dropped Luka Doncic with an ankle breaker, and now the same week has given the Warriors two absences to manage: one to injury, one to the league office.