Stephen Curry broke his hand, and bad gets worse for the Warriors

Capping off one of the wildest, most bizarre nights in NBA memory, Stephen Curry sadly broke his hand on a hard fall driving to the rim on Aron Baynes. This came amid a blowout loss to the Suns at home. Given how awful the Warriors have looked with Curry this season, and given that the West is expected to have no shortage of playoff-quality teams, this feels like a fatal blow to Golden State’s playoff chances.

Jeff Stotts of the valuable In Street Clothes found seven players who broke their second metacarpal (the same one Curry broke). Four of them needed surgery and missed an average of 16 games (about a month). Three did not need surgery and missed about that time (two weeks). Curry will have a CT scan soon so it can be determined whether he’ll need surgery. But it looks like two to four weeks.

How many games can the Warriors win in the next month without Curry? Golden State is 1-3 right now, and of the next 16 games on the schedule, only four are against teams extremely unlikely to be in the playoff picture. It figures to be pretty brutal until he gets back.

What’s a hole the Warriors can’t dig out of? What’s a hole that leads the front office to look seriously at D’Angelo Russell trades come Dec. 15? What’s a hole that has the Warriors slow-roll Curry’s comeback (being in a new arena complicates that idea)? We don’t know, but none of this looks good.

Bad times in the Bay. Get well soon, Steph.

Bulls 111, Cavaliers 117
Knicks 83, Magic 95
Timberwolves 95, Sixers 117
Bucks 105, Celtics 116
Pacers 118, Nets 108
Pistons 113, Raptors 125
Rockets 159, Wizards 158 (no OT, not a typo)
Blazers 102, Thunder 99
Clippers 96, Jazz 110
Hornets 118, Kings 111
Suns 121, Warriors 110

All times ET. Games on League Pass unless otherwise noted.

Heat at Hawks, 7 p.m., TNT
Nuggets at Pelicans, 9:30 p.m., TNT
Spurs at Clippers, 10:30 p.m.

Joel Embiid and Karl-Anthony Towns, who have beef history, got into a fracas during the Wolves-Sixers game. Ben Simmons choked out KAT when it went to the ground. The Philly crowd ate it all up.

Later, the real fight began ... on Instagram. Embiid made some references to JIMMY BUTLER and third-stringers kicking KAT and Andrew Wiggins’ tails in practice last year, KAT clapped back, Embiid clapped back harder and then accused KAT of hiding/deleting his comments. These dudes are just heaping extra games onto their inevitable suspensions.

This is bad for the Sixers and Timberwolves. But this is tremendous content.

I’m still processing a 159-158 regulation game in the NBA. It’s a real score. It really happened. James Harden had 59. Bradley Beal had 46. The Wizards shot 62 percent and lost! It’s all pretty incomprehensible.

Mike Prada goes deep on the Celtics’ offense and finds that, uh, it’d be perfect for Kyrie Irving.

Ricky O’Donnell on Tyler Herro being the perfect pick for the Heat.

ALWAYS TRADE FOR THE SUPERSTAR (if you can).

James Dator can write a headline.

I can’t express how impressed I am with the staff at Deadspin’s bravery and principles. Solidarity, friends.

Be excellent to each other.