MINNEAPOLIS – The Warriors needed seven games to get through the Houston Rockets and advance to the second round of the NBA playoffs, where they’ll face the Minnesota Timberwolves starting Tuesday night at Target Center.
These two teams played each other four times in the regular season, with the Warriors taking three games. But there isn’t that much to take from those games.
Their last matchup was on Jan. 15 when Steph Curry was joined by Dennis Schroder, Andrew Wiggins, Gui Santos and Trayce Jackson-Davis in the starting lineup. A whole lot has changed since then. None of the four games were after the Warriors’ acquisition of Jimmy Butler.
This series will once again be full of storylines.
Butler versus a former team he doesn’t acknowledge. The long-running beef between Draymond Green and Rudy Gobert. Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards trying to slay Curry as the possible next face of the league. The Warriors will be happy to see Donte DiVincenzo, who spent one season with them, too.
Here are four keys to the No. 7-seeded Warriors getting four wins against the No. 6-seeded Timberwolves.
At least split the first two
Lower seeds have ruled the start of the conference semifinals. The Indiana Pacers surprised everyone by beating the East’s top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers to open their series, and both the New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets mounted comebacks to earn Game 1 wins. The Warriors hope to keep the trend going among underdogs.
It’s going to take more than just their stars. The Warriors’ role players are going to have to hold their own to open the series. Curry played 46 minutes Sunday, Butler played 45 and Green played 40. Brandin Podziemski also played 40, and Buddy Hield played 37.
Kerr used four players off the bench, and the most minutes a reserve received was 11. Expect much more of a regular-season rotation Tuesday night before upping the ante Thursday night in Game 2. There’s no way Kerr is going to pull a Tom Thibodeau and run a 37-year-old Curry, plus two 35-year-olds in Butler and Green, to the ground in Game 1.
“Feeling pretty good,” Curry said Tuesday at shootaround. “We got through it. Emptied the tank in Game 7 like you’re supposed to, but it’s nice to actually keep a rhythm. We’ve been playing every other day for the last week and a half, so we’ve got a good understanding of how to recover, get your mind and body right for another challenge. Game 1s are always interesting, just the feeling-out process. We just want to come out with energy and focus on the stuff that we can control and see where it takes us.”
With just one day of rest, Tuesday could look like a scheduled loss for the Warriors. It won’t be if role players rise up. Whether it’s the first game or the second of Round 2, the Warriors can’t head home to Chase Center down two-games-to-none.
Draymond’s best
From the start to the finish, Green was absolutely locked in for the Warriors’ Game 7 win in Houston. It all began with a speech the night before at the Warriors’ team dinner, taking accountability for his poor attitude and losing his poise the previous game. Nothing could rattle him to wrap up the series and end the Rockets’ season.
The Warriors will need that version from Green against the Timberwolves, especially while battling Gobert. Both teams know their history, as do the fans and referees. Everybody will be sensitive to one wrong move.
“I have to keep it similar for my guys, forget anybody else,” Green said after Game 7 regarding his mindset for this upcoming series. “But for my guys, I need to stay that way. So, I’ll be locked in. It’ll be good.
“Finding that balance, finding that line but not crossing it is important for me and this team. I gave them my word and I’ll continue to give them my word.”
He’ll have to stick to that promise. Green was called for four technical fouls and two flagrant fouls in the first round. Reaching seven techs or four flagrant points will result in a one-game suspension.
Every game is a possible defensive clinic when Green is on the floor. The Warriors will need that against another much bigger team that has some real offensive firepower. But they’ll need his offensive aggression as well. That was near the top of the list of keys in the Warriors staving off the Rockets in Houston.
Green in Game 7 scored 16 points on 15 shot attempts. His 15 shot attempts were his most since taking 18 in a 21-point performance against the Toronto Raptors on March 20. Green hadn’t scored in double figures once all series and his offensive aggressiveness was a major difference.
Winning the 3-point line
Here’s how different the Warriors and Rockets are offensively: The Warriors attempted 104 more threes than them in their seven-game series, and made 34 more. They tripled the Rockets’ 3-point output in Game 7, making 18 threes compared to only six for Houston on its home court. There won’t be that big of a discrepancy with the Timberwolves.
While the Warriors finished fourth in 3-pointers made per game in the regular season (15.4), the Timberwolves were fifth (15.0). The Timberwolves made their threes at a high clip, shooting 37.7 percent as a team, which ranked fourth in the NBA. They only shot 32.3 percent from deep in their first-round series against the Los Angeles Lakers, though that was largely due to them missing 17 consecutive threes in Game 5 and going 7 of 37 overall, but still found a way to win behind Gobert’s 24 rebounds.
“That’s an area of focus,” Moses Moody said at shootaround. “Changing your areas of focus with a team that’s not attacking the 3-point line as much as a team that is. Just having your antennas up, guarding the three in different actions and knowing that’s going to be a factor.”
Yes, the Timberwolves, like the Rockets, are much bigger than the Warriors. Curry also has feasted beyond the arc against those bigs and shot 45.8 percent from three against Minnesota in the regular season.
Containing Ant-Man
He’s already one of the NBA’s biggest stars at 23 years old. After beating LeBron James and the Lakers in the first round, this could be Edwards’ superstar moment if he outplays Curry and advances to a second straight conference finals. And he knows it.
Edwards, since he was the No. 1 pick in the 2020 draft, has been one of the game’s best athletes. His signature shoes can grow springs at any time for a poster dunk. He finds another gear and gets into overdrive in the blink of an eye. He also has transformed his offensive arsenal this season.
Through his first three seasons, Edwards averaged 7.4 3-point attempts per game, including a career-low 6.7 last season. After being around Curry as his Team USA teammate this past summer in the Paris Olympics, Edwards took a huge leap as an outside shooter and averaged 10.3 3-point attempts in the regular season, the second-most in the NBA. He took the most threes (811) in the NBA, and made the most (320).
Is his ability to get to the basket or his progression as a 3-point threat the bigger focus for the Warriors?
“All of the above,” Curry says. “He gets good looks from three because you have to respect the drive, and then when you press up he can get by and put pressure on the rim. He’s done a pretty good job of distributing the ball if he gets in the crowd and all that type of stuff, too. They have 3-point shooters around him, Gobert at the rim – I don’t know how much you can take away from him, it’s just you have to make every possession as difficult as possible and not give him easy looks, knowing he’s going to score and he has the ball in his hands the whole game.
“He’s tough, and we can’t get discouraged if he gets hot. It’s just what great players do.”
Golden State’s top on-ball defender, Gary Payton II, missed Sunday’s Game 7 due to a bad illness. He wasn’t at shootaround that morning, but was Tuesday morning ahead of Game 1, and has been labeled questionable all day. It might be Butler to start the game, Payton at times, or Moody, Green and even Curry. Whoever’s job it is, the Warriors have to make Edwards as uncomfortable as possible.
