Cavs recall Zizic from Canton Charge

Stephen Curry described his Grade 1 left hamstring strain as a “gut punch.” Curry is out through at least Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals and will be reevaluated after that.

“This is new, and from all that I’m learning about how quickly you can get back, there has to be a healing process,” Curry said at Golden State Warriors shootaround Thursday before Game 2. “You can’t accelerate it more than what it’s telling you. So it’ll be one of those, after a week, really reevaluating every day to understand when it’s safe just to even think about playing, let alone how much can you push it.”

Curry said he is “a little ways away from” taking stationary jump shots. He said the rehab process right now is “a lot.” Curry felt no warning signs leading to the injury in Game 1.

“I felt great the whole game up until that point,” Curry said. “And then I made a little pivot move on defense and felt something, didn’t think it was nothing or anything. I felt like I could just go get it released and be able to come back out. But with soft tissue, stuff like that, it was one of those situations I could have done more damage if I tried to go back out. So obviously a tough break, but hopefully I’ll be back soon.”

Tyrese Haliburton’s “mission” is to use the Indiana Pacers’ success in the In-Season Tournament and the regular season to recruit star players to the team, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

“This is a team with salary cap space and draft picks. And [Haliburton] knows that his team president Kevin Pritchard has been really aggressive in the last year trying to chase players like Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby in Toronto, offering big trade packages for players who could become free agents in the near future.

“And what changes the equation for the Pacers now is that they know they have a Pied Piper in Tyrese Haliburton that guys are going to want to play with. And as Haliburton said to me, ‘I’m going to get you shots, I’m going to make life easy for you, and we are going to win.’

“And that is really Haliburton’s mission right now, to use this tournament, to use this season to start making the case to star players around the league, ‘Come play with me in Indiana,'” said Wojnarowski.

Haliburton had 27 points and 15 assists in leading the Pacers to the final of the In-Season Tournament against the Lakers.