Wolves beat Curry-less Warriors, even series

Who knew that winning without Steph Curry could be so challenging Everybody Which is why the Minnesota Timberwolves appropriately evened up their second-round playoff series with the Curry-less Golden State Warriors Thursday night via a performance that required and received more discipline than dazzle The Wolves needed to be workmanlike A chronic flaw that dinged their record and their reputation during the - regular season was a tendency to take their advantages for granted They lost more than a handful of games to vastly inferior opponents and a scant more in contests where a seemingly safe lead against a quality foe disappeared due to a lack of focus that flustered the composure suddenly required to close out the conquest As Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch has put it sometimes the bulk dangerous opponent for us is us Curry strained his left hamstring in the opening tournament of the series on Tuesday night won by the Warriors - The injury reportedly will be re-examined in a week The timing would coincide with the fifth meeting scheduled between the two teams in the best-of-seven series Can Golden State survive without the engine and the emblem of their vaunted franchise whose phenomenal range and accuracy as a shooter and panache under pressure has fueled four NBA championships for the Warriors over the class of his career Supposedly not without chosen compliance by the Wolves falling prey to an opportunistic Warriors defense that led the NBA in fewest points allowed per possession and preponderance points scored due to turnovers by their opponents since Golden State acquired veteran star Jimmy Butler in early February A hot start On Thursday night the Wolves didn t comply They scored the first points of the championship during a span of minutes and seconds removing the stigma of their wretched three-point shooting in the opener by making two treys within the first minute of action Their two leading scorers Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle passed for two assists apiece Center Rudy Gobert grabbed three of the contest s four available rebounds and Ant got the other Defensive ace Jaden McDaniels registered a block and a steal Meanwhile Golden State s entire output consisted of a foul a turnover and four missed shots Following the onslaught Warriors coach Steve Kerr pulled Quinten Post the seven-footer who replaced Curry in the starting lineup from the competition and he never returned Draymond s antics and Ant s injury Early in the second quarter with the Wolves up by the Warriors Draymond Green hit Naz Reid in the jaw with his off arm as an almost reflexive action while Naz was fouling him on the play As Naz lay on the court the referees having already whistled Naz for the foul called time and reviewed the play ruling that Draymond s reaction was worthy of a technical foul Green went ballistic walking over to scream profanities at each of the three personnel and Curry in street clothes Kerr and then assistant coach Jerry Stackhouse used increasingly intense pleas to try and calm him down Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green looks on against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second half during championship two of the second round for the NBA Playoffs at Target Center Credit Jesse Johnson Imagn Images A second technical foul was clearly warranted but it would have banished Green from the challenge and the bureaucrats shied away from making that huge impact in such a high-stakes contest But beyond the context Green like no other NBA athlete with the workable exception of former Timberwolves guard Patrick Beverley gets away with using language and actions with the administrators that isn t normally tolerated Without Curry the Warriors chances of success are severely diminished Add the loss of Green a tenacious defensive wizard and even those slim chances vanish That s why Curry Kerr and Stackhouse made such an extraordinary effort to calm him As it is now Green is only two more technical fouls from being suspended for a meeting And his seemingly accidental physical reactions to being fouled occur with a suspicious frequency which increases the danger of him being banished for a flagrant foul two There was another event in the second quarter that initially felt like it could change the unit of the contest if not the series Ant went down beneath the basket holding his ankle and wincing in pain as the rest of the players moved up the court By now longtime watchers of the Wolves are cynical of these situations having seen Ant continually head for the locker room with what seems like a serious injury only to return nearly as good as new a short time later Sure enough Ant emerged from the locker room and led the band in scoring and minutes played in the second half Nevertheless both Ant and Finch declared that this particular mishap felt and looked more fraught the ankle was swelling the initial pain more intense Like Draymond s temper Ant s injury is worth keeping an eye on and if it gets worse the consequences could be seismic to the series But the more the pattern is repeated the more Ant s overreaction to injury becomes like the boy who cries wolf fable and becomes as credible as Draymond s cries of injustice from the representatives viscerally sincere but ultimately specious The hiccup At the start of the second half the dynamic the Wolves need to fear the largest part with Curry out gained traction Already up by points Minnesota emerged from the locker room neither physically nor mentally engaged to close the deal early The harbinger was Butler easily gliding through Gobert Conley and Ant for an uncontested layup on the first possession The Wolves movements on offense were neither crisp nor careful leading to turnovers and fouls in transition Players were frustrated by the whistles not understanding that their positioning and reactions were literally not up to speed forcing late contact The teamwide hustle slackened pumping hope into an outmanned Warriors lineup Five minutes through the third period the lead had been cut to seven A furious Finch called time The coach had already given an early hook to Randle after he committed a pair of turnovers and for his part Randle admitted after the challenge that he was steamed and had to be talked down by veteran Mike Conley and Joe Ingles on the sideline But all season long Finch and Randle have hammered out a brutally honest but respectful relationship grounded by mutual faith and admiration Randle was back in the lineup after the timeout and he and the Wolves had a different potency and purpose at both ends of the court After getting outscored - in the first five minutes they roared by a - margin in the final seven minutes getting premiere orchestration from Randle who doled out five assists to five different players in that span The Warriors never got closer than points the rest of the way NAW resurrects Rudy struggles Concern over the poor shooting of Nickeil Alexander-Walker NAW was slowly but surely on the rise after he followed up a shaky five-game stint against the Lakers with another clanking performance to open the second round Before the encounter on Thursday Finch noted that the misfires were beginning to unsettle NAW and affect the other aspects of his meeting including the rock-solid defense and decision-making on offense that had been mostly stellar and self-assured through the regular season So perhaps the best news out of the action on Thursday was NAW s -point performance accumulated in the natural flow of the tournament without strain nor hesitation A transition layup was good kindling for the resurrection followed by another layup in the half court borne of a nifty fake pass and quick step to the hoop Then Ant ascertained him for a trey in rhythm just before halftime In the second half he led the Wolves in shots taken tied for lead with Ant in scoring and still had bandwidth to dole out three assists The points were a career playoff high the minutes his second-most in the seven postseason games he s played thus far At the other end of the spectrum the Wolves clearly made it a priority to get Rudy Gobert more engaged in the offense on Thursday but Gobert s hand-eye coordination careened into catastrophe often enough to make that a fool s errand As with NAW blatant mistakes cling to Rudy s consciousness and his instinct is then to power through with extra effort usually exacerbating the complication It may not matter with Curry out but a Gobert showcasing his offense in confident rhythm is the easiest way to exploit Golden State s relative lack of size just as it was in the opening round against the Lakers He s just two games removed from his monster -point -rebound master class that closed out L A Those skills can return just as fleetly and mysteriously as they vanish Did Kerr play possum As everyone was absorbing the series-altering news about Curry s absence Kerr commented he would try a lot of participant combinations in an effort to see what works Sure enough players saw time in the first quarter alone and three others were added to the mix before the end of the first half But was Kerr really looking for dynamic alternatives or conserving the value of strength and wear-and-tear on his remaining core personnel for games in front of the home crowd with more time to prepare Jimmy Butler certainly played seven minutes less in Competition Two than in Battle One Draymond played five minutes less and Buddy Hield the performer who can best mimic Curry s marksmanship from long range played minutes less Meanwhile capable bench players such as Gary Payton II of playing time and Kevon Looney were likely underutilized while folks like the energetic scrub point guard Pat Spencer logged during which time the Warriors were outscored by points And while another deep-bench athlete Trayce Jackson-Davis hit all six of his shots in Golden State was outscored by in those minutes The only viable new bench piece was possibly Jonathan Kuminga who was long in Kerr s doghouse for not fitting in with the schemes the coach utilizes He hit eight of his first nine shots and finished -for- and can provide a semblance of the spacing and quick trigger Curry has spoiled Kerr with for a great number of years But even there Golden State was outscored by eight in the Kuminga logged Expect a much shorter rotation and a much more cohesive offensive attack as the series shifts to the Bay Area on Saturday and Monday Winning without Steph Curry is incredibly arduous but it is Kerr s job to figure it out now with core personnel who are marginally better rested The post Wolves beat Curry-less Warriors even series appeared first on MinnPost