In news that surely didn’t surprise but disheartened Golden State Warriors fans, Stephen Curry will not be available for tonight’s game as he continues to work his way back from a hamstring strain that he suffered in the second quarter of Game 1 against the Minnesota Timberwolves last Tuesday. Although Golden State ended up outscoring the Timberwolves by one point in the remainder of that game, it has lost each of the last three games and faces elimination tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET.
If Minnesota can close out the Warriors tonight, it’ll have a rest advantage over its conference finals opponent, as the Oklahoma City Thunder hold a 3-2 lead over the Denver Nuggets headed into tomorrow night’s game in the Mile High City. But if not, the next game won’t take place until Sunday evening, possibly giving Curry — who was cleared for light on-court workouts today — a chance to return.
DraftKings Sportsbook backs the Timberwolves to finish the job, as they’re an 11-point favorite (-485 Moneyline), with the point total set to 202. Golden State is +370 on the Moneyline.
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To the Warriors’ credit, they’ve had flashes even without their talisman, losing Game 3 by just five points. Two players have really stepped up in those three games: Jimmy Butler and Jonathan Kuminga. Across Curry’s absence, Butler has averaged 21.3 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 4.7 assists per game, while Kuminga has put up 23.7 points and 3.7 boards. The two forwards rarely took the court together in the regular season, but the lineup featuring Kuminga and Butler alongside Draymond Green, Brandin Podziemski, and Buddy Hield has seen some success, especially in Game 2, when they won their 11 minutes by eight points.
Still, Golden State is down for a reason. It hasn’t gotten much production out of its reserves — it got just six points from its non-Kuminga bench players in Game 4 — and Green has had a relatively poor series, averaging only 10.8 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.3 assists, and 1.3 steals per game while shooting less than 40% from the field. Its lack of size has been a concern, as it has given up the second-most points in the paint of any conference semifinals participant, and it’s also conceded the second-most assists. The Warriors have needed Green to play up to his Defensive Player of the Year level, and he hasn’t, allowing Julius Randle to score 25 points and dish out nine assists on 10-for-19 shooting from the field across 77.6 possessions.
The 18-2 run second-quarter run behind four unlikely Green triples with Curry in the game that propelled Golden State to a Game 1 win in Minnesota aside, I’m not sure what reason for optimism that Golden State should have. The Warriors’ offense has been truly inept without Curry this season, finishing 12 points per 100 possessions worse during the regular season and 16.4 points per 100 possessions so far in the postseason. To make matters worse, Golden State’s defensive improvement with him on the bench has been less pronounced in these playoffs than in the regular season.
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It’s worth noting that Game 4, despite ultimately being decided by seven points, wasn’t all that close. The Warriors led by two points at halftime, but made just seven of their 19 field-goal attempts (none of their six threes) in the third quarter en route to losing the frame, 39-17. Although Golden State was the fifth-best third-quarter team in the NBA after acquiring Butler — one of the most notable vestiges of its dynastic era — it came out of the break completely flat on Monday. 10 of the Timberwolves’ 23 field goal attempts in the quarter came with the nearest defender more than six feet away and a further four came with the nearest defender between four and six feet away. Given that, it’s hardly a surprise that Minnesota nailed 15 shots, including six three-pointers, in the frame.
With Game 4 ultimately being a blowout with the scoreline saved in garbage time, the Warriors only really have Game 3 to lean on as proof that they can hang with this Timberwolves team without Curry. That’s concerning; Anthony Edwards and Randle combined to shoot just six-for-20 from beyond the arc in that game, and Butler and Kuminga combined for 63 points. Minnesota also committed 21 turnovers, the most that it has given up this postseason and well above its regular-season average of 14.5 giveaways per game. Donte DiVincenzo alone had three turnovers in under 16 minutes.
The biggest mismatch lies in the middle. Randle has operated as a jumbo-sized playmaker all series, and at six-foot-nine, 250 pounds, he’s simply too big for Golden State to contend with. He’s been dominant all series, averaging 24.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 8.0 assists per game. Randle posted his first career playoff triple-double in Game 3, and his 21.8 assist points created per game easily top all conference semifinals participants. The 23-year-old Edwards might make All-NBA First Team and is arguably the future face of the league, but his role as offensive initiator has been usurped by a 30-year-old whose poor playoff reputation precedes him. It’s a development that nobody — perhaps not even Edwards and Randle themselves — could have seen coming.
It’s working. Edwards has shot 41.2% from deep so far this series, a significant increase from his 33.3% accuracy in the first round. Part of that is luck and part of it is Randle’s playmaking — his proportion of shots with six or more feet of space in the last three games has increased 3.6 percentage points from the first round, and he’s been slightly more efficient on them this series. But his splits this series are worse than they were during the regular season, so the Warriors can’t expect Edwards’ shot to cool off. They also shouldn’t be banking on regression from Rudy Gobert, who has averaged two blocks per game and has limited Golden State to 52.0% shooting within six feet of the basket, the third-best mark among 16 players guarding five or more restricted-area shots per game (the best is his teammate Jaden McDaniels, with Green in fourth).
I could expand on Kuminga’s shooting luck on contested shots — he’s 10-for-17 with the nearest defender between two and four feet away so far this series, an uptick of 7.6 percentage points relative to the regular season — but given the scores of the games, I don’t need to. Some possible better shooting from Podziemski, who’s missed 12 of his 15 open or wide-open threes, won’t make up the difference. With Kuminga playing the best high-stakes basketball of his career, Minnesota has won three straight games and now returns to a venue in Target Center where it posted the league’s sixth-best net rating during the regular season. The wait for Curry’s fifth title will extend at least one more season.
