Hanako's steel ankle, Cole's crack to survive

The Warriors' predicament has been evident since the first second of the opening game. Without Curry's containment, the offensive difficulty of the rest of the Warriors has obviously increased to a higher level, Hield is no longer magical, and the Warriors missed a point on 0-of-8 shooting in the opening 5 minutes, and were beaten 13-0.

The one who broke the game was Butler, a three-pointer and a mid-range Bagger Bert, and scoring five points in a row finally allowed the Warriors to break the scoring drought. Kerr directly used an 11-man rotation in the first quarter, basically taking all the people in the rotation lineup to give it a try, and whoever is in good shape will play more.

In the second quarter, Kerr went even more "excessively", bringing Knox and TJD up, and the 13-man rotation was full. At the end of the second quarter, Braxton Kee was brought up again, and 14 people were rotated, except for the injured Curry, who could not play, and Kerr sent everyone in the first half. This is the first time since statistics began that there was a 14-man rotation in the first half of the playoffs.

To put it bluntly, after quickly falling behind by 18 points in the first quarter, Kerr was already a dead horse in this game, and everything that could be played went up and gave it a try. Similar to the game in which the Rockets lost in the first round, let go of this one and go back to the home court to fight again without Curry.

So we saw that in the second half, the Warriors once chased seven points, and then Kerr went up and down four times, changing to a lineup with no offense at all, and the Timberwolves immediately widened the gap again.

Edwards suffered an ankle injury in the second quarter, which was the most thrilling moment of the game, and TJD's weight stepped on Edwards' ankle, and the average person couldn't get better in two months. But Edwards once again showed his steely ankles, and not long after returning to the dressing room, he returned to the pitch to warm up at half-time and came back in the second half like no one.

Huazi's last three games have been quite average. In the face of the Warriors' encirclement and suppression of him, Huazi's shooting was not accurate enough, and he only made 9 shots in the two games combined, and he averaged more than 10 three-pointers per game in the regular season.

Losing the three-point feeling is not a big problem, and Huazi's layup feeling after breaking through in the last few games has also been lost, which is more worth worrying about. Even if the Timberwolves won this game easily, the Timberwolves still don't seem to have a good way to make Huazi play more comfortable and how to better break the opponent's joint defense.

To be honest, the Warriors without Curry, even with Butler, are definitely not a playoff team. So when the Timberwolves came up with a high level of defensive intensity today, the Warriors' offensive point disappeared completely. Of course, the Warriors didn't gain nothing in this game, at least they tried Kuminga.

In the first quarter of the game, Kuminga was still the same Kuminga, who had a plus/minus of -10 in less than three minutes of play, and also missed two free throws and lost rebounds. However, in the second quarter, Kuminga scored 10 points on 5-of-5 shooting. The baseline broke through the ball with Gobert, which was a long-lost display of talent.

In the third quarter, Kuminga was even able to run to the bottom corner to get a three-point shot and still make a shot, and he didn't miss a shot on 8-of-8 shooting. Such Kuminga, who has not appeared since Butler's arrival, finally gave himself a little more value today.

Kuminga finished the game with a team-high 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting and 1-of-4 free throws. To put it another way, when Kuminga is the Warriors' top scorer, the Warriors are unlikely to win any games.

The Timberwolves went to Golden State with a 1-1 run to be expected, and the balance of the series began to tip in Minnesota's favor.

After Curry injured his hamstring, the suspense of this round of the series was only when he would be able to return. No matter what permutations Kerr finds in the rest of the roster and uses the likes of Kuminga and TJD, the Warriors' core competitiveness is still lost.

Curry's current injury situation will not be available until G5 at the earliest. The remaining G3/G4, whether the magical Kerr can find a little room to win in the cracks, whether the Timberwolves' three-point confidence can be maintained, and whether the Warriors can win one of the next two Warriors home courts, will have a earth-shaking impact on the series.