Last night, the Oklahoma City Thunder finally broke a historic trend; prior to their 149-106 drubbing of the Denver Nuggets, road teams had won each of the first six games of the second round. The New York Knicks had opened their series as huge underdogs against the Boston Celtics and have cut it down to +100. Similarly, the Indiana Pacers were significant underdogs against the Cleveland Cavaliers and are now -205 favorites.
The Golden State Warriors were one of the road teams to win their first game, and they are the only underdog not facing a 60-plus-win juggernaut, but they are still not favored to beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, who have -190 odds to make the Western Conference Finals for the second straight season. That’s because, in Game 1, Stephen Curry suffered a Grade 1 hamstring strain and will be re-evaluated in a week. That timeline would keep him out for at least the next three games.
The Timberwolves are 10.5-point favorites (-485 Moneyline) at DraftKings Sportsbook to even the series, with the point total set to 201. Golden State is +370 on the Moneyline.
Rockets at Warriors Game 2 preview, prediction
An early second-quarter run meant that Game 1 effectively ended quickly. The two teams exchanged (a few) buckets in the first quarter, with Minnesota holding a 20-18 lead at the end of the first frame. But whatever Steve Kerr says during timeouts must work, because in the second quarter, the Warriors came out firing, building a 16-point lead on the back of a 18-2 run. Draymond Green made each of his four three-pointers in the first five minutes of the quarter; by contrast, the last time he even made four three-pointers in a playoff game came all the way back on May 4, 2017, in the second game of a second-round sweep against the Utah Jazz.
Shortly after halftime came the Buddy Hield explosion. The 32-year-old Bahamian scored 16 points in the third quarter, making five of his nine shots, three of his five three-pointers, and all three of his free-throw tries. It didn’t matter that Curry, usually the messenger of bad third-quarter news for opponents, was in the locker room; arguably the second-best three-point shooter of his generation had the leading man’s back. By the time the onslaught was over, Golden State led by 23 points with just 29 seconds left in the quarter. Minnesota made a valiant comeback effort, first cutting the lead to nine with three minutes, 30 seconds remaining in the game, but another Hield triple proved to be the dagger.
The Timberwolves definitely had some room to improve — they shot just 39.5% from the field and 17.2% from beyond the arc, and Jaden McDaniels — who had been a beast in their first-round series against the Los Angeles Lakers — recorded just 12 points. But the Warriors didn’t have their A-game either, shooting just 16-for-45 (35.6%) from inside the arc.
Warriors at Timberwolves pick, best bet
Does Golden State still have a chance of winning this series even without Curry? It led by 10 when he suffered his injury and expanded its lead by an additional point prior to the end of the game, so it might have ended up winning Game 1 either way. But over the course of the series, the prognosis is worse.
Curry missed 12 regular-season games in 2024-25, and though the Warriors went 7-5 in those games, two of the wins came against the New Orleans Pelicans, one against a Memphis Grizzlies unit missing Ja Morant, and one against the Utah Jazz. For his career, Golden State is just 91-152 without its leading man, and they’ve also been outscored by 2.3 points per 100 possessions with him off the floor.
The good news for the Warriors, though, is that they were still a net-positive team this season with him on the bench. They were 7.8 points per 100 possessions better on defense with him on the bench; the non-Curry defensive rating of 107.4 would’ve been the second-best in the league. In Curry’s absence, Moses Moody will probably step into the starting lineup, and he’s a slightly better on-ball defender than Curry. That stifling defense will be critical if Golden State wants to win without him, given that its offensive rating was 12 points per 100 possessions worse without him during the regular season and 20.6 points per 100 possessions worse so far these playoffs. The former difference is greater than the chasm between the top-ranked Cavaliers and the 26th-ranked Toronto Raptors, while the latter would have no precedent in NBA history.
Jimmy Butler will need to be better on that side of the ball than he was in the first game, when Minnesota’s players shot 11-for-17 against him. Green, too, has room to improve; Julius Randle recorded four assists and only one turnover when guarded by him.
Donte DiVincenzo’s numbers looked bad — three-for-11 from the field, one-for-seven from beyond the arc — but that was largely a product of shooting luck, as each of his seven deep attempts came with the nearest defender at least four feet away. He also missed his only shot at the rim, a range in which he went 58.3% during the regular season. Edwards, too, got to the rim at will but couldn’t finish as well as usual, and he hit only one of his four open three-pointers. Randle shot just one-for-six on open shots.
Hield will need to keep up his hot shooting after scoring 33 points in Game 7 of the first round, but his form seems fairly sustainable. Although he won’t go five-for-eight from deep every game, it’s not like he was hitting impossible shots; six of his eight attempts came with at least four feet of separation. If anything, it’s more likely that he’ll shoot better than two-for-11 from inside the arc, given that five of his shots came in the restricted area. Regression to the mean would result in six extra points for Hield, who made 65.8% of his restricted-area tries during the regular season. Green had a healthy shot diet, too, as eight of his 10 three-point attempts came with the nearest defender more than six feet away.
The Warriors face an uphill battle to win this series, especially if Curry can’t return by Game 5, but their defensive improvement without him is very real. Both of these teams have some playoff experience, and Golden State, more than any other team in the NBA, knows how to win even in sub-optimal circumstances. Give me the Timberwolves in a nail-biter.
