Kevin Durant expected to return Saturday vs. Pelicans [report]

Kevin Durant recently started playing 5-on-5 at Warriors practice. We’ve seen him dunking pre-game, looking pretty sharp. His recovery is almost complete.

And now ESPN’s Marc Stein is reporting the Warriors expect him back in the lineup Saturday against the Pelicans.

Story going online now: Golden State is targeting Saturday's home date with New Orleans for Kevin Durant's return, league sources say.

— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) April 3, 2017

Steve Kerr joked on Monday that he’s not going to bring back Durant because the team is on an 11-game winning streak without him. But in all seriousness, the Warriors are thrilled to have him back before the postseason before the inevitable adjustment period.

“We haven’t really talked about it as a staff yet in terms of how we’ll play him,” head coach Steve Kerr said before Sunday evening’s game against the Wizards. “I can tell you, I’m going to start him when he comes back. … I feel confident in our guys just mixing and matching, and feeling confident in what we’re doing.”

As revealed Friday on the Bill Simmons podcast, the Warriors initially feared Durant broke his leg and would miss the entire season.

“The first diagnosis we got was that I broke my leg, fractured my tibia.” Durant said. “And that’s a four or five month recovery. That’s what he told me: 4-5 months. I just bust out crying. I’m like: not again…This is my first year with the team, we’re playing very well at the time. I was playing well individually. It was definitely a good time for our team.

“We checked the scans again, we got a CT scan to see the condition the bone was in and they told me it was just a bruise there and I sprained my MCL, And that reaction in the car was like second to none. That emotional roller coaster was something out of a movie.”

That roller coaster ends on Saturday. The return will give Durant three regular season games to prepare before the postseason begins.