Warriors’ Al Horford officially ruled out vs. Grizzlies, sticking to Steve Kerr's plan

The Golden State Warriors will be aiming to get back on track against the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday after suffering a blowout 139-119 defeat at the hands of the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday night.

Unfortunately, the Warriors will be without their 39-year-old two-way center Al Horford when they take on Memphis' 2023 Defensive Player of the Year winner Jaren Jackson Jr. and electric 2-time All-Star Ja Morant.

Though Horford will be sorely missed, his absence is not surprising. Heading into the season, Golden State's head coach Steve Kerr announced that the 20-year veteran would not play back-to-backs for the entire year.

In this case, he'll miss the first game of their incoming back-to-back against the Grizzlies before a Monday night matchup against the Los Angeles Clippers, a decision that The San Francisco Standard's Danny Emerman revealed to be an important wrinkle of Kerr's strategy.

"Al Horford won’t play tomorrow vs Memphis, per Kerr," Emerman shared via X/Twitter on Sunday afternoon.

"Will suit up vs. Clippers the night after. Warriors want him for the Ivica Zubac matchup."

While their versatile big man will be absent for the contest against a scrappy Grizzlies squad, Kerr already has his eyes on Horford's one-on-one matchup with star Clippers center Ivica Zubac.

The imposing 7-footer Zubac authored a breakout 2024-25 campaign with Los Angeles, as he averaged 16.8 points, 12.6 rebounds and 1.1 blocks paired with a 62.8% field goal percentage in 80 appearances. 

Seeing as though the Warriors will need a floor-spacing big man to hopefully pull the 28-year-old All-Defensive Second Team selection away from the basket, Kerr might figure that Horford being 100% for his battle against the hulking big man is of the utmost importance.

In his first two appearances for Golden State this season, the 5-time All-Star has contributed 9.0 points and 4.0 rebounds while connecting on 50.0% of his looks from three-point range.

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