Brandon Williams to miss at least a week after hamstring strain in Warriors win

Brandon Williams’ night ended in the first quarter, and the follow-up delivered the kind of short-term setback Golden State wanted to avoid. The Warriors said an MRI showed a mild left hamstring strain after Monday’s win over the New Orleans Pelicans, and Williams will be re-evaluated in one week.

That timeline gives the injury immediate weight without pushing it beyond what has been confirmed. Williams is out for at least a week, not indefinitely, but the Warriors still lose a reserve guard who had carved out a steady role in their rotation.

The injury happened early. Williams exited with 3:18 remaining in the first quarter, which left the Warriors to finish the game without him after he left because of the hamstring issue. The club’s update, issued the next day, made clear that the first exam had already narrowed the diagnosis to a mild strain.

For Golden State, the important detail is not just that Williams was hurt, but when and where it happened. Monday’s game was already a win over New Orleans, but the team now has to absorb the loss of a backcourt option from that same contest and carry that absence into the next stretch of the schedule.

Williams is listed by the Warriors as a guard, and the AP report described him as a reserve guard. He is in his first season with Golden State, and he has been contributing off the bench as the team has settled into a strong early run.

His season line helps explain why the absence matters. Williams has averaged 10.4 points, 2.3 assists and 2.1 rebounds in 10 games, with one start, while playing 16.1 minutes per game. Those are not franchise-level numbers, but they do reflect a player who has been part of the nightly guard mix rather than an end-of-bench insurance piece.

That context is what makes the one-week re-evaluation notable. The Warriors did not describe a return date beyond that checkpoint, so the next formal update will matter more than any speculation about how soon he might feel ready. The injury announcement leaves the team with a clear medical schedule and no added forecast.

Golden State’s recent stretch gives the injury a different kind of significance. The Warriors have won eight straight games after opening the season 0-3, and Williams had been one of the bench contributors helping fill out those minutes. His absence does not alter the winning streak itself, but it does take away a guard who had been part of the rotation during the turnaround.

The sequence of events is straightforward: Williams left the game, the MRI confirmed a mild strain, and the team set a one-week re-evaluation. That chain matters because it defines both the diagnosis and the next decision point without stretching the evidence into a longer prognosis.

The practical consequence for Golden State is immediate. The Warriors will have to cover his minutes while he sits out, and they will wait for the next medical review before learning whether the absence extends beyond that first week. Until then, the team has a confirmed short-term gap in a rotation spot that had been producing usable minutes and modest scoring off the bench.