The Golden State Warriors stole Game 1 on the road against the Minnesota Timberwolves in their second-round playoff series, even without Stephen Curry for a majority of the game. That meant someone else needed to step up, and in this case it was Jimmy Butler and Buddy Hield, who combined for 44 points in the 99-88 win against the Wolves.
Both Butler and Hield did most of their damage in the second half, with Hield scoring 22 of his 24 points after halftime, while Butler had 14 of his 20 points during the final 24 minutes. Butler also finished with 11 rebounds, eight assists and two steals to round out a complete performance.
“Robin turned into Batman, — what ya’ll call Buddy [Hield]? Alfred turned into Robin, and they just filled in and it was beautiful to see,” Draymond Green said of his teammates’ performances.
Curry exited the game in the second quarter with what the Warriors announced as a hamstring strain. The Warriors are awaiting the MRI results on Curry’s hamstring to see how severe it is. Curry was grabbing at his left hamstring after playing defense, but managed to stay in the game for a possession before asking to be pulled out of the game. He was then ruled out for the remainder of the night.
“I didn’t see what happened, I just saw him grab his hamstring and limping a bit, so I walked over to him as he was walking towards the locker room and I said ‘you good?’ and he was like ‘I’ll be back’ and he just kept pushing,” Green said. “We didn’t really know what was going on for awhile…then they finally told us it was a hamstring, little deflating, but he did a great job of helping us build a comfortable lead.”
With Curry out, and a 10-point lead to hang onto, the Warriors had to look elsewhere for offensive production, which is where Hield and Butler came in. Golden State managed to fend off the Timberwolves who made a push in the fourth quarter, but now must plan for the potential of playing without Curry in Game 2 and possibly beyond.
With Curry’s status up in the air, the Warriors are still seen as the underdogs in the series (+135 at Caesars Sportsbook), but Green was happy to hype up Butler after Game 1 and remind people of his new teammate’s playoff past. Butler led the Heat to the NBA Finals in 2020 and 2023, doing so as a No. 5 seed five years ago and a No. 8 seed two years ago.
“We know what Jimmy’s capable of, Jimmy’s capable of carrying a team, he carried a team to the Finals twice,” Green said. “So we won’t panic, we’ll figure out what [playing without Curry] means, we have the best coaching staff in the NBA, we know they’ll put us in a good spot and let us know what our offense looks like without Steph if we have to go on without him. But we have full confidence in the guys that are on this team, that we can make plays, we can make shots, and we know we got a guy that can make that first domino fall in Jimmy.”
Everyone’s looking at Butler to step up, and the Warriors will likely need more than the 20 points he put up in Game 1 as the series moves forward. He’s proven capable, and this is exactly why the Warriors traded for Playoff Jimmy.
