Steph Curry, Andre Iguodala out of Warriors-Hawks due to injuries

Coming off a week that saw him score 175 points in four games and turn in even more jaw-dropping performances in a season full of them, it seemed fair to wonder just what it would take to hold Stephen Curry down on the score sheet. The answer, it seems: a balky ankle that will take him off it entirely.

After a day spent listing him and Andre Iguodala as questionable, the Golden State Warriors made it official shortly before their Tuesday night home game against the Atlanta Hawks:

Stephen Curry (left ankle) and Andre Iguodala (left hamstring tightness) are OUT for tonight's game vs. Atlanta

— GSWStats (@gswstats) March 2, 2016

Veteran reserve Shaun Livingston will get the start in place of the reigning MVP.

Curry rolled his ankle during the Warriors' thrilling Saturday win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, leaving the game briefly to get it re-taped before returning to finish a performance in which he tied the all-time record for most 3-pointers made in a single game and hit the game-winning shot from just inside half-court in overtime. The ankle still felt sore after the weekend, though, leading Curry to skip both Monday's practice and Tuesday's shootaround. Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said Tuesday that he'd planned to err on the side of caution if there was any question as to whether suiting Curry and Iguodala up could cause longer-term issues; evidently, he decided that discretion was the better part of valor in Golden State's return home after a long and successful (if at times turbulent) road trip.

In the big picture, that caution seems wise. The Warriors, after all, are a team with designs on winning back-to-back NBA championships, and any opportunity they have to help ensure they keep both the league's most unstoppable player and their top wing reserve in full health and fine form come the spring is one they have to take.

In a more immediate sense, though, losing two big pieces of their rotation — including the reigning Most Valuable Player and front-runner for this year's honors, too — does make them a much more vulnerable squad to falling to the visiting Hawks, which means it puts 53-5 Golden State in danger of losing their one-game edge on the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls in the race for the best regular-season record in NBA history. And if Curry's ankle and Iguodala's hamstring keep barking beyond this evening, that danger only grows:

If Curry was so far away from playing that he didn't even try to warm up, question now becomes whether he plays Thursday.

— Nate Duncan (@NateDuncanNBA) March 2, 2016

Then again, the last time Steph missed a game, Klay Thompson dropped 38 and Draymond Green put up a triple-double to beat the Houston Rockets. It's worth remembering that, even without the game's most impossible-to-stop weapon, the Warriors are not without arrows in their quiver. They'll have to use all of them on Tuesday to knock off Mike Budenholzer's club.