Minnesota defeats Golden State 121-110 to win Game 5 and advance to the Western Conference Finals.
No apologies.
No one was asking the Minnesota Timberwolves to make any, and the defeated Golden State Warriors weren’t expecting any after having their postseason ended with scoring star Stephen Curry in street clothes for the final four games. All losses.
The left hamstring strain that Curry suffered in the second quarter of Game 1 altered the dynamics of their Western Conference semifinals series in a half dozen ways. Few teams can lose their No. 1 offensive weapon — and one of the most potent weapons in NBA history, even at age 37 — and not sag significantly.
In simplest terms, Golden State led Minnesota 30-20 when Curry limped off, his season over. The rest of the way, the Wolves outscored them by 46 points.
That’s decisive, as was their 4-1 elimination of the SoFi Play-In Tournament survivor Warriors. Could Curry have scored 46 points in the minutes he missed? Of course. But Minnesota might have responded, too, altered some strategies, and so on. These playoff series are like quadratic equations, variables stacked one on another on another.
“Injuries are a part of the playoffs,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said. “There’s no sense in dwelling on it. I don’t want to take anything away from what Minnesota just accomplished.”
The Wolves return to the West’s championship round in their best year-over-year postseason showing in franchise history. They were beaten by Dallas in 2024 after their stirring Game 7 elimination of defending champion Denver.
Going back, they believe they are better equipped for the experience.
“Were you a Western Conference Finals team or were you a team that just happened to make the Western Conference Finals?” Minnesota coach Chris Finch said, expressing the team’s challenge to itself heading into the 2025 playoffs.
“Tremendous loss for Golden State, tremendous loss for the series. I’m sure it would have been quite different had Steph been able to play. But our guys took care of business.”
Here are five takeaways from the Wolves’ 121-110 victory Wednesday night at Target Center as they await the winner of the Oklahoma City-Denver series.
1. Wolves celebrate ‘Playoff Julius’
The ups and downs of Julius Randle’s first season in Minnesota and a spotty, fairly meager playoff resume gave no inkling as to the version of Randle that showed up in this series. Or, frankly, continues as Randle’s excellent postseason adventure.
The veteran forward, acquired on the brink of training camp along with Donte DiVincenzo in the surprising trade that sent Karl-Athony Towns to New York, was Minnesota’s best player in beating the Warriors. His scoring (both timely and in quantity), pivotal rebounding, his ability to initiate offense and get Anthony Edwards off the ball and, yes, his defense were essential ingredients.
Through the series’ first four games, Randle had averaged 24.3 points, 6.3 rebounds and eight assists. In the clincher, he scored 21, had eight boards and five assists, and shot 9-for-12, frequently flashing smiles on his big, expressive face.
Randle has scored 20-plus points in eight of the Wolves’ 10 games this postseason. He and DiVincenzo can exhale knowing that the Wolves have done no worse than they did last spring with Towns. But that’s a half-empty outlook. Randle has been outstanding.
“The way he controlled the tempo, the way he pushed the pace,” Edwards said, launching into his own list of Randle superlatives. “Even his defense has gone to another level. The way he communicates with us. His attention to detail is incredible.”
2. No playoff from Butler
Butler came into the series with a bruised glute, a leftover from crashing to the floor in Game 2 of the first round against Houston. He was said to be sick on Monday in Game 4.
But there was no need to offer him excuses, because Butler wasn’t having any.
“Good enough to compete,” he said late Wednesday.
Butler infused Golden State with new facets — his methodical pace, his passing, his free throws — and gave the fading dynasty fresh hope for this run. With Curry, he served as a counter-punch, each man benefiting from the other’ style of play.
What the 35-year-old Butler couldn’t do, though, was carry. The alpha who got the Heat to the NBA Finals in 2020 and 2023 never got out of sidekick gear after Curry got hurt. No Curry as a deep threat meant less space for all the other Warriors to operate.
Oh, Butler averaged 20.2 points in the five games. But he shot 43% and was underwater in plus-minus. Golden State got outscored by 37 points when the veteran forward was on the court. It was one point better, overall, in the minutes he sat.
3. Mike does it for Mike
In last year’s push to the West finals, Timberwolves point guard Mike Conley wasn’t shy about urging his teammates to keep advancing for him.
“I told the guys that, selfishly, do it for me, man,” Conley said then, admitting to what was part challenge, part tease and completely sincere.
In his 17th season and 36 years old at that time, Conley could hear the clock ticking. Yet in Game 5 and now a year older, the soft-spoken veteran listened to his own pep talk. Now he’s headed to the West Finals again.
Conley had chipped in a modest 6.0 points and 4.3 assists while shooting a frosty 7-for-28 through four games. This time, he scored 16 and sank four 3-pointers to join the starting lineup of potent double-figure scorers.
With another trip to the Western Conference Finals at stake, veteran Mike Conley steps up in all the ways that matter.
4. Lies, damn lies and statistics
That old saying about how numbers can be misleading seemed to be in play Wednesday. Kerr ticked off the various areas in which Golden State got the better of Minnesota, points of emphasis that he had stressed to his guys: Possessions, field goal attempts, 3-point attempts, rebounding, forcing turnovers, and so on.
The Warriors won all those categories, yet lost by double-digits because of one stat their defense did not control. The Wolves shot as if they were tossing apples into a wash tub, making 62.8% of their shots and 41.9% of their 3s. Even Minnesota’s horrendous 21 turnovers – tied for their fourth-most all season – could not give enough of the game away for Golden State to get closer than 11 in the final quarter.
5. Steph Watch steps back
We’ll never know now if Curry could have returned for Game 6. The likelihood of him benefiting from another three full days of rehab will remain pure speculation. He can recover in the offseason, as he sees fit and his leg permits.
And we’re probably better off for it. OK, some Golden State fans will disagree, but did they really want to see the future Hall of Famer risk an even more serious injury by pushing back too soon, out of obligation to his teammates?
The NBA has already seen Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Milwaukee’s Damian Lillard laid low this postseason by Achilles tendon tears. Cleveland had several banged-up players when it got bounced by Indiana in five games. The last thing Curry, the Warriors or the league at large needed was to see Curry suffer something catastrophic the way Kevin Durant did (Achilles) when he pressed to play in the 2019 Finals against Toronto.
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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