Warriors' Injury Report vs. Spurs Features 7 Ruled Out, 2 Questionable

The Golden State Warriors have ruled out seven players for Wednesday's game against the San Antonio Spurs.

The headliner is Stephen Curry, who will miss his 26th straight game with runner's knee. But it's not all bad news for Curry, who scrimmaged Tuesday and could make his long-awaited return as soon as Sunday.

On the front end of a back-to-back, it makes sense that the Warriors would be more cautious with players' availability, and that might explain why Kristaps Porzingis (illness management) and De'Anthony Melton (thumb) have been ruled out.

Al Horford (calf), Quinten Post (foot), Moses Moody (season-ending knee injury) and Jimmy Butler (season-ending knee injury) are the other four Warriors ruled out.

Gary Payton II (knee) and Gui Santos (pelvic contusion) are questionable.

Of the Spurs' standard-contract players, only Luke Kornet (knee) is out.

Western Conference Standings Update

Both the Spurs and Warriors have the odds stacked against them to move up the Western Conference standings.

The Warriors (36-39) are 10th in the West. After the Trail Blazers' win over the Clippers on Wednesday, the Dubs have just an 8.4 percent chance of moving to ninth, per Basketball Reference's Playoff Probability Report.

The report has the Warriors at 89.7 percent to finish 10th. It has the Clippers (39-37) at 64.2 percent to finish eighth and the Blazers (39-38) at 65.0 percent to finish ninth.

Meanwhile, the Spurs (57-18) are locked into a top-two seed, but they still have an outside chance of catching the Thunder (60-16) for the top spot.

If the Warriors enter the play-in tournament ninth or 10th, they will have to win two games to secure the eighth seed. They can't move up to seventh.

So for this game to be a first-round preview, the Spurs would likely need to pass the Thunder in the standings.

Warriors' Depth Chart vs. Spurs

Depending on whether Santos and Payton can go, the Warriors will have between nine and 11 players available Wednesday.

PG: Brandin Podziemski, Pat Spencer
SG: LJ Cryer, Seth Curry, Gary Payton II (questionable)
SF: Will Richard, Nate Williams
PF: Gui Santos (questionable), Malevy Leons
C: Draymond Green, Omer Yurtseven

I'm listing Will Richard as a small forward here because the Warriors are thin at the forward spots. But note that Richard is a 6'3" guard.

The Spurs have won nine straight, and only two of those games have been decided by single digits. Even if Green does a nice job containing 7'4" phenom Victor Wembanyama, the Spurs should find a way to take advantage of the Warriors' absences to win this one.