NBA Matchups: May 8

Golden State Warriors at Minnesota Timberwolves

Team Totals: Warriors 95, Wolves 105.5

Injury Report: Stephen Curry (O, hamstring)

Warriors projected starters: Buddy Hield, Brandin Podziemski, Jimmy Butler, Gary Payton II, Draymond Green

Wolves projected starters: Mike Conley, Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Julius Randle, Rudy Gobert

Offensive Ranks: Warriors 17th, Wolves 7th
Defensive Ranks: Warriors 7th, Wolves 6th

Season Series: 3-1 Warriors

Noteworthy missed games: Draymond Green (2 missed), Jimmy Butler (4), Brandin Podziemski (1)

Kerr quotes: Said Steph is day-to-day from his hamstring strain, said Steph is “crushed” because of his injury, said their defense is keeping them afloat right now, said he just told GP2 that he was going to have to start 3Q, said they were trying to run off misses to get their offense in a spot where they are not attacking a set defense from the Wolves, said Draymond is the best defensive player he’s ever seen because he’s able to help so many of his teammates, said they are planning for Steph to be out for at least Game 2, said the team will have a day off on Wednesday and they’ll come up with a game plan, said they did not plan to go 12 deep and they were “winging it in the second half”, said the entire bench battled out there, said Kuminga played important minutes for them, said Spencer will “definitely get more time” if Steph is out, said they were going to just run a lot of high PNR for Jimmy to slow the game down, said Jimmy has such great anticipation when it comes to getting rebounds, said he’ll just trust head trainer Rick Celebrini on Steph, said Buddy on Ant was based on what options they had and Buddy “made the most sense as a ‘no brainer'”, said in 2016 when they were missing Steph they had Shaun Livingston and Andre Iguodala to fill in and this team isn’t the same.

Finch quotes: Said he absolutely thinks guys are being affected on defense because of the bad offense, said “the light went out” on Ant some of the time because of bad offense, said they have to have a better rhythm, said Ant is the leader of the team and he has to set the tone, said he shouldn’t have to talk to guys about having the right energy, said they struggled against the zone for that five-minute stretch, said Randle started well for them, said they have to win on the boards and in the paint, said the Gobert lineups were not defending well for them.

This presser with Jimmy Butler and Buddy Hield is too good.

Stats and Notes:

*Stephen Curry is likely missing most of this series, and the Warriors’ offense is going to look quite different. We got a taste of it in the second half as Jimmy Butler took on most of the handling, and it’s going to be really tough for the Warriors to score now, which the market is on with the 95 projected total points for the Dubs. In 103 minutes without Steph on the court for these playoffs, they have just a 90.6 offensive rating compared to a 115.7 with him in the 281 minutes. The Wolves’ defense wasn’t a problem in Game 1 with a 104.2 O rating, but it actually got worse in the second half at 114.8 because of guys like Buddy Hield hitting shots. The Warriors will likely have to win this in the mud. For the Wolves’ offense, it starts with missing their first 16 attempts from deep. They didn’t finish around the basket well, they had no transition offense again, and they even got crushed on the boards. It was just one of those classic games where the Wolves put up a dud.