The Golden State Warriors fought for their playoff lives for seven games before finally holding off the pesky Houston Rockets on Sunday night to advance to the second round in their first playoff campaign with Jimmy Butler on the roster. But two consecutive losses in closeout games on Wednesday and Friday nights mean Golden State had just one day of rest prior to flying up north.
The Minnesota Timberwolves, meanwhile, made quick work of the Los Angeles Lakers, dispatching LeBron James and Luka Dončić in five games, so they’ve had five days to rest, which could be critical for some of the aging members of the core, namely 32-year-old Rudy Gobert and 37-year-old Mike Conley. The teams will tip off at 9:30 p.m. ET at the Target Center in Minneapolis.
Minnesota is a 6.5-point favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook (-265 on the Moneyline) and the point total is set to 210. Meanwhile, the Warriors are +215 on the Moneyline.
Rudy Gobert to Record a Double-Double (+125)
I don’t expect Gobert to put up another 27-point, 24-rebound masterclass like he did in the closeout game against the Lakers, but there are reasons to believe that he might be effective in this series despite being a bad theoretical matchup for a team with a lot of mobility and off-ball movement — between Butler and Stephen Curry — and the instigators to get under his skin, between Butler and Draymond Green. Namely, I’ve never fully bought Golden State’s solid rebounding numbers in the second half of the season, and in the first round, it gave up 46.9 rebounds per game, the most of any team. Houston’s bigs, Alperen Şengün and Steven Adams, blitzed the Warriors by 18.2 points per 100 possessions when the two shared the court, and Gobert and Naz Reid could form a similar pairing.
In the aggregate, Adams and Şengün are better rebounders than Gobert and Reid, and Golden State can probably hold its own better than it did against the Rockets. Still, because of Reid’s shooting, he and Gobert are a natural fit on the court, and in the 948 minutes that they shared the court during the regular season, they outscored opponents by 12.4 points per 100 possessions and also recorded more rebounds, assists, and blocks. The Warriors gave up the fifth-most points in the paint and the sixth-most second chance points in the first round, so it’s easy to see a path for Gobert to record his second double-double of the postseason. He recorded two double-doubles in the teams’ four regular-season contests, although all four came before the Butler deal.
Stephen Curry Most Threes (+120)
Prior to a fourth-quarter flurry that saw him score 14 points, including two-for-three accuracy from deep, it was a relatively underwhelming first round from Curry. He had three solid games — scoring 31 points in Game 1, 36 in Game 3, and 29 in Game 6 — but he also had several inefficient performances, including just 30 points combined between Games 4 and 5. For the series, he shot below 40% from deep and, uncharacteristically, below 90% from the free-throw line, but he still led all playoff participants in three-point attempts per game for the seventh time in 10 playoff appearances.
The make leader was the Milwaukee Bucks’ Gary Trent Jr., with Curry in second, but he’s since been eliminated. Anthony Edwards tied for sixth, and with +235 odds, he’s the only player with a realistic shot at making more triples than Curry tonight. Edwards most certainly wants the smoke; he’ll always believe that he’s the best player on the court, even though he’s lining up against a top-12 player of all time who’s still ultra-effective despite being on the tail end of his prime. But he’s simply not as efficient as Curry, and he’s also capable of zero-for-11 performances like the one he put up in the closeout game. It’s likely that Golden State will put Butler on him, who held opponents to just 34.5% from deep in the regular season, the 108th-lowest among 332 players to guard at least 100 three-point attempts.
Jimmy Butler U1.5 Steals (-135)
The Timberwolves did arguably the most important thing well during their first-round series: force a lot of turnovers and not give it away that many times themselves. Of all 16 teams in the first round, Minnesota forced the fourth-most turnovers and allowed Los Angeles to record only the second-fewest steals. And it’s not like the Lakers were particularly bad at forcing steals during the regular season; after adding Dončić at the start of February, Los Angeles recorded the 17th-most steals per game in the league, although it did struggle with turnovers.
Butler had one impressive showing in the first round, snagging five steals in the series opener, but after that, he only notched two or more steals once and went completely swipe-less in three of the six games in which he played. Presuming that he predominantly guards Edwards, it’s unlikely that he’ll be a ball hawk, given that Edwards gave the ball away two or fewer times in each game during the first round.
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