The Minnesota Timberwolves hope their third California adventure of the postseason proves to be as fruitful as the first two when they tip off a two-game sequence of the Western Conference playoffs against the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco on Saturday night.
The teams are scheduled for Game 3 on Saturday and Game 4 on Monday in the best-of-seven series, with the clubs each having won a game when the Western semifinals opened in Minneapolis earlier in the week.
As the sixth seed in the West, the Timberwolves were the underdogs when they began their first-round series with a road win over the third-seeded Los Angeles Lakers last month.
Minnesota came away from the trip with a split, then never lost again in a 4-1 elimination of the Lakers, a three-game winning streak that included a clinching victory back in L.A. in Game 5.
The upset win earned the Timberwolves the home-court advantage over the Warriors, who also pulled a first-round surprise as the West’s No. 7 seed, outlasting the Houston Rockets in seven games.
When last seen at home, Golden State blew a chance to wrap up the first-round series in six games, dropping a 115-107 decision to the second-seeded Rockets last Friday.
The Warriors have been on the road ever since, having returned to Houston for a successful Game 7 before heading straight to Minneapolis for Games 1 and 2.
As it did against the Rockets, Golden State gained an immediate upper hand against the Timberwolves with a 99-88 road win on Tuesday. But they lost star guard Stephen Curry to a strained left hamstring in the process.
Curry, who sat out Thursday’s 117-93 loss in the rematch at Minnesota, already has been ruled out of Games 3 and 4. He is scheduled to be re-evaluated on the eve of Game 5 when the clubs return to the Timberwolves’ home floor.
Coincidentally, the Warriors were without Jimmy Butler when they hosted the Rockets in Game 3 after the key in-season acquisition suffered a pelvic contusion in Houston. That didn’t stop Golden State from going up 2-1 in the series behind Curry’s 36 points in the first of consecutive home games, before Butler returned to contribute 27 points to a Game 4 victory.
If there was a positive to Thursday’s blowout, it was that Warriors coach Steve Kerr was able to experiment with different combinations in an effort to find new sources of production that could help minimize the impact of Curry being out.
Jonathan Kuminga, who saw action in just three of the seven games in the Houston series, hit 8 of 11 shots in an 18-point, eye-opening performance. Trayce Jackson-Davis, who left the bench for just 24 minutes against the Rockets, chipped in with 15 points and six rebounds.
“There’s no Steph. It’s a completely different team,” Kerr assured Friday when asked if he had rotation changes in mind for Game 3. “Everything has to be about finding a new formula, and JK (Kuminga) is absolutely a part of that formula.”
Continuing the thought, he added, “(Jackson-Davis) showed he can be effective against this team.”
Golden State’s new look hardly impacted the Timberwolves, who rode big nights from Julius Randle (24 points, 11 assists) and Nickeil Alexander-Walker (20 point) to the one-sided win.
Make no mistake, Minnesota coach Chris Finch insisted afterward, the best thing that happened all night was when star Anthony Edwards, who went to the locker room after suffering an injury to his left ankle in the second quarter, returned to the lineup after halftime.
“There’s lots of ways being an elite athlete pays off,” he noted. “Being able to shake those things off certainly is one of them. I was really planning on not seeing him the rest of the game.”
