Kevon Looney out due to health and safety protocol

The Golden State Warriors were quite shorthanded in their surprising 116-103 win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night. And they’ll be even more shorthanded in the sequel on Saturday night.

According to a report from Marcus Thompson and Anthony Slater of The Athletic, starting center Kevon Looney is not available for tonight’s game as he has entered the health and safety protocol.

Despite the fact that this happened in the middle of a baseball series, the second game of the doubleheader is expected to go ahead as planned.

The Warriors are also without James Wiseman and Eric Paschall, who remain in the health and safety protocol, and have to quarantine for a week. Assuming they pass their coronavirus tests, they’ll be eligible to return for Thursday’s game. It’s unclear if Looney will also have to be out for seven days as well. For now, the Warriors are under the expectation that it should be a short stint on the sidelines for Looney.

In addition to the three players in the health and safety protocol, superstar Steph Curry missed Friday’s game due to a tailbone contusion, and is expected to miss Saturday’s game as well.

So the Warriors will play without the the three centers who have been in their rotation this year — Looney, Wiseman, and Marquese Chriss. And they’ll also be without one of their two small-ball fives in Paschall. That likely means that we see a lot of Juan Toscano-Anderson, but might we see a little bit of Alen Smailagić as well?

Either way, a difficult game just got a little bit more difficult, for a team that just got a little bit more shorthanded.

Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly noted that Looney was on the health and safety protocol due to contact tracing. We don’t actually know what placed him on the protocol. As NBC Sports Bay Area’s Kerith Burke notes, there are many things that can land a player on the absent list.