It’s not great news for Kevin Durant and the Warriors, but it could have been a lot worse.

The Warriors announced on Wednesday that Durant will be re-evaluated in four weeks after suffering an MCL sprain and bone bruise in his left knee during Tuesday night’s game against the Washington Wizards. There is no timetable for his return, but the Warriors said that Durant could play again before the team’s final regular-season game on April 12.

Durant is averaging 25.3 points, 8.2 rebounds and 4.8 assists in his first season with the Warriors. The team has already reacted to the injury by reportedly agreeing to sign forward Matt Barnes instead of veteran point guard Jose Calderon.

Here are five things to know as the Warriors look to figure out their playoff path without Durant. 

1. The Warriors become lesser favorites than they were ... but still favorites. SportsLine projects the Warriors’ chances to clinch the No.1 seed from 89.9 percent down to 74.5. So they still wind up with the No. 1 overall seed three out of four times you play this season out with Durant gone for a month. Their odds of winning the championship only drop from 55.2 percent to 52.1, a 3.1 percentage point drop. Or “not much.”

The Westgate Superbook in Las Vegas dropped the Warriors from a 5-11 favorite to a 1-2 favorite, meaning they are still favored against the field.

The story here? The experts don’t believe this changes much of anything.

The Warriors still have three All-NBA guys in Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson. They still have a roster filled with quality role players, even if it’s not quite as good as last year’s. They are still likely to face the weakest 8th seed in some time in the Western Conference, with no real threats for the first round, assuming they hold on to the 1-seed.

Golden State’s already built a cushion, their path if favorable, their matchups acceptable, and their roster still loaded. The consensus is that the Warriors will be fine.

2. About that 1-seed ... The Spurs trail the Warriors by four games total, and three in the loss column. The Spurs hold a 1-0 series lead for tiebeaker after San Antonio’s opening night blowout. If they want to catch the Warriors, they’re going to need to win at least one of those games. That moves the needle by 1.5 games, handing the Warriors a loss, securing a win, and tiebreaker over Golden State.

The Warriors’ magic number is 20 for the 1-seed with 22 games to play for the Warriors and 24 to play for the Spurs. Let’s say the Spurs only lose three more times, which would be impressive factoring rest games and tougher opponents in the back half of the schedule. But they’re the Spurs, so let’s say they finish the next month and a half with only three losses. Let’s say the Spurs win tiebreaker over the Warriors.

That means the Warriors would only have to go 17-5 to secure homecourt. That seems like a great record until you realize they have 10 losses on the season total. They’d have to lose over 50 percent of their current loss total for San Antonio to catch. That doesn’t seem likely, given how much talent they have remaining.

I ranked all the Warriors’ remaining opponents on a scale of 1-5 with “1” being a pushover team like the Sixers or Magic, and a “5” being a serious threat and top-three team like the Spurs or Wizards. Golden State’s average opponent strength, anecdotally, was a 2.95 under that subjective scale. So just below average. Their schedule is basically evenly split between scrubs and top-end teams.

3. This throws all sorts of lineup problems into the mix for the Warriors. The “Death” lineup with Durant at the four is effectively gone. You can experiment with Matt Barnes (who the Warriors will sign as soon as Wednesday) at the four, but they lose firepower that makes that lineup go. Transitioning to a Curry-Thompson-Livingston-Iguodala-Green lineup doesn’t provide the spacing that makes that lineup go.

But that lineup will be great defensively. And they can manage the spacing by using Patrick McCaw or Ian Clark in four-guard lineups. Those lineups will still be effective, but probably won’t be used as often.

So they’ll be playing big lineups consistently. JaVale McGee’s emergence is key here, giving them a chance to keep playing the up-tempo, wide-open style. They need David West back to help them at power forward so that they’re not driving Green into the ground. Which brings us to our next point.

4. Their margin for injury is gone. If the Warriors lose someone else to injury, they’re in real trouble. Curry’s obvious, but losing Thompson or Green would be devastating since Durant is effectively a combination of the two. There’s just not a lot of opportunity here for the Warriors to rest if they want the No. 1 seed, but without Durant, with a top-heavy roster, there’s also big issues with having to play guys too many minutes.

They have to make sure they don’t suffer another injury, which means putting rest first, but putting rest first puts their 1-seed in trouble. That’s the quandary they’re going to face over these final six weeks of the season.

5. Continuity and rhythm is a real concern here. Stephen Curry suffered a knee sprain last year in the first round, returned in two weeks, and wasn’t the same. That was evident the whole way through. It’s not so much whether Durant will return this season, he obviously will. But having to return straight into playoff intensity is difficult, and if he’s not 100 percent, that throws a lot of what the Warriors do out of whack.

Can a Warriors team with a compromised depth chart and a 75 percent Durant still win the title? Absolutely. But the path gets harder. That’s what we’re talking about here.

Then there’s the continuity concern. The Warriors haven’t fully exploited the potential of Steph Curry and Durant in pick and rolls this season. They had an extra six weeks to work on that, and much of that is now gone. Likewise, the Warriors’ crunch time offense has been problematic and they needed more chances to work on that. That’s gone.

So the news for the Warriors with Durant is “better than it could be,” but still not good. It’s not “they’re in trouble,” but it’s definitely “this makes things harder.”

Golden State is still a machine of blades and fire, but this lowers their tire pressure and puts more strain on the engine. How they respond will be a story worth watching play out.