The Golden State Warriors finally returned to the court after four days off to face the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday night. Even before the game started, the Warriors got two positive pieces of information.

Steph Curry was officially off the injury report, making his return to action after missing the last five games with a quad contusion. For the Timberwolves, they would be without their star player, Anthony Edwards, who was ruled out a few hours ahead of tipoff with foot soreness.

Even without their superstar, the Wolves still came to play. The Warriors were severely undersized compared to the Timberwolves, especially with both Draymond Green and Al Horford not playing, and Minnesota's big man trio of Julius Randle, Rudy Gobert, and Naz Reid exploited that. The Warriors ended up suffering a hard-fought loss, 127-120, to fall back to .500 on the season.

Curry did not look like a player who just spent the last 16 days recovering from an injury. The two-time MVP was superb, dropping 39 points on 50% shooting from the field to go with 5 rebounds and 5 assists.

In his postgame press conference, Curry reflected on how he felt during the game.

"I felt pretty good to start, and (had) the normal middle-of-the-game (process) of trying to get your second wind. Once you get into the rhythm of the game, things start to feel normal again. Individually, it was a good first game back, just to get my lungs back and feel like myself."

Curry also looked back on how the Warriors ended up losing the game.

"We had a rough start to the fourth. Against a good team, you can give everything you got — thankfully we got back in the game and took the lead for a certain point — but you're at the mercy of a couple makes here, a couple misses here, challenge call, stuff like that. We did battle, gave ourselves a chance ... Just a tough way to end."

Despite the Warriors seeming to break out of their weeks-long shooting slump against the Chicago Bulls on Sunday, going 22-47 from three in the 32-point blowout, the struggles reared their ugly head once more.

Even with Curry back on the floor, the Warriors as a whole would have had a hard time throwing the ball into the San Francisco Bay on Friday night. Many of their shots from beyond the arc were quality, open looks, but they ultimately finished the game shooting a dismal 15-46.

The offense simply grinded to a halt early in the fourth quarter, where the Warriors went five minutes without a single point and had to watch as the Timberwolves built a 12-point lead behind a 17-0 run.

The Warriors weathered the storm and managed to retake a 3-point lead with just 2 minutes left, but at that point, they had run out of gas to take the advantage across the finish line. 

The Warriors will remain at home to host the Portland Trail Blazers next on Sunday evening.