Warriors vs. Blazers Game 2 preview: Golden State can beat Portland without Stephen Curry

Stephen Curry will be out for the Golden State Warriors again tonight, but Sam Hauss of NumberFire described today why the Warriors can beat the Portland Trail Blazers in this series even without the presumptive MVP.

...given the favorable matchup against a Portland squad that ranks just 16th in our team power rankings, our algorithm gives Golden State a 79.5% chance to reach the Western Conference Finals even if Curry were to miss the remainder of the series.

With a much more daunting matchup against either the Spurs or Thunder -- the first- and third-ranked teams in our power rankings -- on the horizon, why risk further injury to your star when the team is more than capable of knocking off an inexperienced, overachieving Blazers team without him?

With two All-Stars remaining, an impressively deep roster of players that nicely complement their starters, and a size advantage that played out to great effect in Game 1, there's no reason to lack confidence in the Warriors' ability to advance at this point.

And while Curry has said that chances are "pretty good" that he'll be back for Game 3, it's good to know that the Warriors have a high probability of getting along without him: Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group reported today that Warriors GM Bob Myers is a bit more cautious about making proclamations.

"I don't know that it'll be before," Myers told 95.7 The Game. "It might be after."

"I know everybody wants to know is it going to be Saturday, is it going to be Monday? It's in that range, but it's hard to say. But those games (3 and 4) are so close together.

Myers laughed about Curry telling ABC he felt his chances of playing in Game 3...were "pretty good" because the reigning MVP usually says he can play.

Of course, we all want the MVP back sooner rather than later — especially since we're having our third Golden State of Mind Night of the season on Saturday — but you can't be mad at those in charge approaching this cautiously.