On February 28, Kevin Durant dropped to the ground in apparent pain, gripping his knee in agony.

Golden State Warriors fans everywhere collectively held their breath as the team’s leading scorer and best overall player headed to the locker room, with everyone fearing that the worst possible outcome would be confirmed.

With a bit of luck, Durant suffered an MCL sprain (no tear) and has been out since, missing 17 games so far, nursing the injury with the hopes of returning for the playoffs.

According to ESPN's Marc Stein, who cited team sources, Durant’s rehabilitation has been progressing nicely and he’s on course to play the team’s final three regular-season games.

That means that he will be back this Saturday when the team takes on the New Orleans Pelicans and will finish up the season with games against the Utah Jazz and Los Angeles Lakers.

Coach Steve Kerr spoke to reporters on Sunday and confirmed that he would like to see Durant return during the regular season in the hopes of regaining consistency before their playoff run.

"Hopefully we can get him in for a couple of regular-season games," Kerr said. ”We'll see how it goes. We'll see what the training staff says. I'm not too worried about incorporating him because he's been with us all season and fit right in from the beginning. So whenever he gets back, we'll plug him back in there and watch his minutes.”.

Therefore, a strict minutes restriction will be enforced when Durant returns.

While the physical aspect of getting him on the court will be much-needed, Kerr also will have to approach his return from a psychological and schematic point of view as well.

"That's the main thing," Kerr added, "just watching him physically. I'm not worried about incorporating him into our schemes and all that stuff.”

After losing five of the first seven games that Durant missed following the injury, Golden State had to learn to adapt to his void. Now, they’ll have to adapt to getting him back in the lineup.

Before their game on Sunday, Kerr joked with reporters when asked about how he will utilize Durant upon his return, via The Mercury News.

“I may not play him,” Kerr sarcastically quipped. “We are so much better without him. (PR man) Raymond (Ridder) said that there are a lot of stories out there saying we are better without him, so I’ll go with that. Maybe bring him off the bench and play him spot minutes depending on matchups.”

Outspoken teammate Draymond Green couldn’t hide his enthusiasm towards getting KD back and claimed that he doesn’t want him to fit in.

“Hell no,” Green said. “Absolutely not. He’ll fit right in. But we don’t need him to fit in. I think that’s where people kind of get it mixed up. He wasn’t brought here to fit in. He was brought here to stand out. That’s what’s important. We don’t need him coming back trying to fit in with what’s going on. We need him to come back and be KD. That’s what he’ll do. We don’t really joke — it’d be foolish of anyone, especially us, to think we’re a better team without him or we’re going to do whatever we want to do. Nah. There’s definitely no jokes and we can’t wait for him to get back.”

At 63-14, the Warriors hold the NBA’s top record and stand 3.5 games ahead of the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference.

In the midst of an 11-game winning streak, Durant’s return will only bolster Golden State's hopes of returning to their third-straight NBA Finals, in which they clearly have a goal to cut down the nets.