Anthony Slater breaks down how Warriors will handle Jonathan Kuminga's return to lineup

The Warriors have won five games in a row. A win on Thursday over the Houston Rockets would all but cement a play-in appearance.

They have won the past four games without the help of Jonathan Kuminga, who is expected to return to the lineup Thursday, after dealing with knee tendonitis. The Athletic's Anthony Slater joined the Morning Roast Wednesday morning and broke down how he believes the Warriors will accommodate Kuminga's return.

Slater expects that Kuminga will reclaim his spot in the starting lineup.

"Kuminga is supposed to play and I assume he'll go back to starting," Slater said. "And then it creates this wider conversation about can you play Kuminga, Draymond and Trayce Jackson-Davis together? They have not tried it much. There's spacing issues there.

"But Trayce Jackson-Davis is starting to look like a guy that you need to play 25-to-30 minutes, and it's helpful to start him next to Draymond. You're not going to put Wiggins on the bench right now.

"My guess? To answer your question, what do I think they're going to do? I think they're going to start Kuminga and go to that starting lineup that puts Draymond back in the center, bring Trayce off the bench as more of the backup center, but I also do think he's still gonna play a ton of minutes and I think they're gonna try to pair him with Draymond for larger sections of the game than they'd been comfortable doing about three weeks ago."

That leaves Stephen Curry, Andrew Wiggins, Jonathan Kuminga and Draymond Green as the starters.

But what about the shooting guard spot? Klay Thompson has thrived off the bench, but he's also played well after reclaiming his starting role from Brandin Podziemski. Slater thinks Thompson will remain a starter from here on out.

"I don't think [Thompson will go back to the bench]," Slater said. "Because even before Kuminga went out, Klay had been moved back into the starting lineup. So I think just the way Klay's shooting it the spacing that they want, particularly if they want to go two bigs, or even if they want Kuminga and Draymond on the floor together, just the spacing that Klay provides with the way he has been shooting it over the last month and a half. I just think Podziemski sitting in that higher usage bench roll and then Klay, my guess is Klay is your starting two guard the rest of the season."