Informably, Golden State defeated an opponent of NBA playoffs of the youngest and superior NBA without his best player.
Your challenge? Do it again and again, for at least a week.
After the superstar of the Warriors, Stephen Curry, suffered a tension in grade 1 sticks in the victory of game 1 on Tuesday in Minnesota, will be reevaluated in a week, the team said.
According to the schedule of the semifinals of the conference, that timeline will probably lead the Warriors to be without curry for the next three games, if not more. If the series reaches a game 5 on May 14, the series will take three days off before game 6, a possible break for curry recovery.
Curry, 37, the most prolific three -point shooter in the history of the NBA and the cornerstone around which the career of four Warriors champions was built, does not leave a common vacuum. And for his team, he does not raise an ordinary challenge, since Golden State has rarely been forced to play without him in the postseason.
Although the predominant image of Curry’s first seasons in the NBA was his height, fighting to deal with recurring ankle lesions, since he underwent ankle surgeries in 2011 and 2012, Curry has become an extremely durable playoff bail. Since 2013, he has played in 155 postseason games, while only 12 is missing.
It had been seven years without an absence of playoffs, a section of 65 consecutive appearances.
That consistency was perhaps why, despite his impressive victory of game 1, the tone of interviews after the Golden State game was sometimes sad instead of celebration. His team understood that he was about to deal with a challenge that he had rarely found.
The Warriors coach Steve Kerr, told Curry’s mood in part time as “absolutely crushed.”
Seeing Curry wounded was a “little disinflation,” Draymond Green said. Losing Curry means more than losing his three -point shot of 40% during these playoffs, which exceeds the average of his career. The mere presence of Curry leads the defenders to him and far from the teammates, an effect that is described in the NBA as “gravity” and that creates openings for others.
Because the Warriors have rarely needed to compensate without curry during the postseason, there is little precedent pointing out how Kerr could adjust their playoff rotation for an absence of multiple games. But the victory of the game 1 without Curry showed something like a plan, one that changes the load towards the 35 -year -old green, the defensive disruptive of the team and the scorers Jimmy Butler and Buddy Hield, which were combined for 44 points.
In many ways, this is the reason why the Warriors exchanged with Miami for Butler in the middle of the season, a commitment that the 35-year-STAR caliber talent and the heroic of the past playoffs while taking Miami to two appearances in the NBA final Curry and Green. Butler added 11 rebounds and eight assists to his 20 points.
If Hield and Butler can continue to replace the curry score will be a focus for next week, but the path of their team towards victory on Tuesday and in the future appears at the defensive end. Minnesota scored only 11 points in the second quarter as part of a first half of 31 points, while missing the 15 of its first halves. That poor shooting, and the defense of Golden State, took the Timberwolves focused on three points to play outside the character. Two thirds of their shots entered the three -point arch. Now they have 4-0 when the triples represent about 40% or more of their total shots, and 0-2 at least.
In the second half, the back guard Pat Spencer, a former Lacrosse player superior who had previously played moderation in this postseason, joined that effort with two robberies from the bank. Jonathan Kuminga, a former first -round draft selection that was actually out of the rotation of Golden State only one round before, was among the cast of reserves and backs that had united potential clients together and will be asked to do the same thing again.
Timberwolves is expected to be more acute. His coach criticized the lack of tone performance of the star Anthony Edwards, who lost his first 10 shots, and the quick decisions “diabolical” of Minnesota, which converted 18 losses of the ball of Golden State in just 10 points.
He also had other self -inflicted errors.
Of its 28 triples taken when the closest defender was at least four feet away, which the NBA classifies as “open” and “open” shots, only made five.
It was enough to allow Golden State to stay for 24 minutes in the second half without his star. If you can achieve it again to potentially at least three more games will decide the series.
