Warriors coach Steve Kerr back after bout with COVID-19, awaits Suns-Mavericks Game 7 winner

Not sure what was harder for Steve Kerr.

His bout with COVID-19 or watching the Warriors play on television with his wife, Margot.

"She sat there for about two minutes and then announced that she was going to head downstairs to watch the Kardashians instead," said a laughing Kerr on Sunday's Zoom availability. "It was a good arrangement. Like all good marriages, you know when to be together and to give each other a little space. All is good now, though."

Kerr has rejoined the team after missing three games as third-seeded Golden State advanced the Western Conference finals with Friday's Game 6 win over the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies.

"It really wasn't bad," said Kerr about the symptoms as he tested positive for COVID-19 two hours before Game 4 in San Francisco.

"Just felt like I had a cough and some congestion. The main thing for me was I didn't want to risk getting anybody else sick. I knew I had to test when I felt some symptoms. We had a couple of internal cases organizationally. So once I tested and it came back positive, I just had to get away from the team and protect everybody else, but it really wasn't too bad."

Warriors associate head coach Mike Brown, who the Sacramento Kings recently hired as their new head coach, served as interim head coach in Kerr's place for Game 4, Game 5 and Game 6.

"Mike was fantastic, the whole staff was great," Kerr said. "For Mike in particular, what a difficult spot to be put into, especially given that he had just been hired by Sacramento."

The Warriors won Game 4 in comeback fashion, 101-98, lost by a whopping 39 at Memphis and pulled out Game 6 a home to closeout this conference semifinals series.

"Great adjustment, from a mindset and approach perspective, knowing how dominant they were in Game 5, we said it's going to show a lot about who we are. and we answered the call," Warriors All-Star guard Stephen Curry said after Game 6.

Now the Warriors await the Phoenix-Dallas Game 7 winner on Sunday with Game 1 of the conference finals set for Wednesday.

Golden State will either open that best-of-7 series in Phoenix against the top-seeded Suns or at home versus the fourth-seeded Mavericks.

"Two great teams," Kerr said. "Phoenix has had an amazing regular season and made the finals last year. So they've clearly been the class of the West, but with Luka (Doncic), we're watching one of the great players in the league kind of come into this own and emerge. As as fan, it's incredible basketball to watch."

Golden State went 2-2 against Phoenix in the regular season and 1-3 versus Dallas, but didn't have a consistent roster pretty much all season.

Draymond Green missed nearly three months with injuries, Klay Thompson made his return in January after missing two full seasons with injuries and Stephen Curry sat the last 12 games of the regular season with a foot injury.

"Everybody has had their share of injuries," Kerr said. "Everybody has had their share of COVID absences. Regardless of which team we end up playing, we'll watch all the regular season games, but I think what happens is you get a feel for which games are more relevant to the series ahead than the others based on availability, based on how the games went, that kind of thing."

Kerr said they have one group of coaches scouting the Mavs and another group scouting the Suns and that both groups will be ready to present a scouting report to the team Monday.

Kerr added that their advance scout, Scott Vaughan, has seen the previous six playoff games between Phoenix and Dallas.

Vaughan is back with the Warriors.

"He has gotten a good look at both clubs," Kerr said. "We're not going to waste energy by pouring effort into preparation now before Game 7. So we'll wait to focus on whichever team wins tonight and go from there, but we'll have a game plan prepared for our players (Monday) and a big part of our practice will be implementing that game plan."

Have opinion about current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on Twitter at @DuaneRankin.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Warriors coach Steve Kerr back from COVID-19, awaits Suns-Mavs winner