Warriors vs. Timberwolves Game 1: Curry exits with hamstring injury but Butler, Hield spark Warriors win

It felt like 2018 in Minnesota Tuesday night, and that’s not a good thing. That fall, as Jimmy Butler was trying to force a trade out of Minnesota, he walked into one legendary practice, grabbed four end-of-the-bench players and led them in a scrimmage against the starters, talking smack the entire time and leading the scrubs to a win.

That Minnesota nightmare returned on Tuesday. On a night Stephen Curry left the game in the second quarter with a strained hamstring, Jimmy Butler led an undermanned Warriors team with 20 points, 11 rebounds (four offensive) and eight assists. Curry or no Curry the Warriors played strong defense, got timely shooting such as Draymond Green knocking down four 3-pointers, pushed their lead out to 23 at one point, and then held on at the end to pick up the 99-88 victory.

Golden State now leads the series 1-0, with Game 2 on Thursday in Minnesota.

There are two key takeaways from this game.

One is whether Curry will be available Thursday night, or at any point for the rest of the series. Curry will get an MRI on Wednesday to determine the severity of the hamstring strain, but he was seen by reporters limping as he left the arena.

The concern for the Warriors is that even if this is a “mild” Grade 1 strain, Curry could miss most of this series.

The other takeaway is that Anthony Edwards came out flat, shooting 0-of-10 to open the game, scoring just one point in the first half, and the rest of the Timberwolves followed his lead. Anthony and his teammates seemed thrown off by the zone defense Steve Kerr threw at them for chunks of the night. Here is what Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said, via Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic.

“It starts with Anthony. He struggled early and the light went out… You’re the leader of the team. You have to come out and set the tone.”

“People are going to try to blame whatever, blame whoever,” Edwards said, via the Associated Press. “They can blame me. I just didn’t play good enough.”

Minnestoa started to put it together in the fourth quarter and got the Warriors’ lead down to single digits, but Buddy Hield and the Warriors hit enough key shots late to hold on. Hield finished with 24 points and had five made 3-pointers.

Minnesota shot below 40% as a team, and while Edwards came back to lead the team in scoring with 23 he shot just 9-of-22. Julius Randle was 4-of-11 on his way to 18 points, and Naz Reid added 19 off the bench.

Expect a different Timberwolves team in Game 2, if not they will be in a hole that may be too deep to climb out of.