Kevin Durant is back. The former MVP will return to the Golden State Warriors on Saturday night after missing a little more than a month with a Grade 2 MCL sprain and a tibial bone bruise.
Obviously, Durant will need a little time to work off some rust. He’s one of the best basketball players alive, so he won’t need too terribly long to get back into the swing of things, but it’s not crazy to think that he’ll need a game or two to work his way into game shape after an extended absence.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr agrees with this. During his pregame media availability on Saturday, Kerr mentioned that he will not put Durant on any kind of formal minutes restriction, but he still expects that Durant won’t be able to recapture his MVP-caliber form immediately.
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“There aren’t any minutes restrictions, per say,” Kerr said. “But it’ll be based on his level of conditioning and fatigue. I can’t imagine in the first game back that I’ll run him huge minutes, it’s probably just … check in with him occasionally, see how he’s feeling.”
Kerr also said that he’s not worried about how Durant will perform offensively, which makes sense, because he’s Kevin Durant. However, the Warriors coach did mention that he wants to see Durant make a concerted effort in two aspects of the game.
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“Defense and rebounding,” Kerr said. “I’m not concerned about the offense for good reason. He’s gonna score points, even if he’s not shooting well he’s gonna score points … When we start our playoff series next week we’ve gotta be locked in defensively, so that has be his focus tonight and the next two nights.”
Golden State’s season will conclude with three home games: Saturday’s game against the Pelicans, a potential playoff series preview against the Jazz, and the regular season finale against the Lakers. The main thing for the Warriors is to get Durant back into some kind of rhythm with the rest of his teammates, so you can probably bet that Kerr will do everything he can to make sure this happens.
