Warriors vs Timberwolves - Game 2

[brandon87]

Is it wrong to hope Edwards’ ankle swells up like a pudding and he is unable to play either of the two games in the Bay??

[DonaldSanders]

Is it wrong to hope Edwards’ ankle swells up like a pudding and he is unable to play either of the two games in the Bay??

Yes.

[Nvnervous45]

I'm scared now because the pressure is off steve kerr. The steph injury is a built-in excuse for the dubs being bounced this series.

[Scottie15]

I'm scared now because the pressure is off steve kerr. The steph injury is a built-in excuse for the dubs being bounced this series.

He never has pressure. He's Bochy 2.0. He's invincible.

[SpreeS]

I missed first half…after checking boxscore I thought that Kerr is in preseason mode…13 players played in first half.

[Romulus]

I'm scared now because the pressure is off steve kerr. The steph injury is a built-in excuse for the dubs being bounced this series.

He never has pressure. He's Bochy 2.0. He's invincible.

Actually, he's Podz-proof. He's "Mr. Untouchable."

[Romulus]

I missed first half…after checking boxscore I thought that Kerr is in preseason mode…13 players played in first half.

Yes, after Kerr got behind 13-0 to start, he decided to just throw crap against the wall much like a pre-season game. Not a care in the world.

[brandon87]

Is it wrong to hope Edwards’ ankle swells up like a pudding and he is unable to play either of the two games in the Bay??

Yes.

Well, I’m fine with ‘wrong’. The Warriors have been shafted with injuries historically, how many more would Steph have won without them? So it’s about time someone else had that.

[superunknown]

Is it wrong to hope Edwards’ ankle swells up like a pudding and he is unable to play either of the two games in the Bay??

not at all. just look at the pacers in the last couple of seasons.

[AirP.]

There it is, Kerr punted the game.

Read on Twitter

Butler still feeling the effects of the 1st round injury.

Read on Twitter

[WarriorGM]

I'm unsure how fruitful this in-game tryout went. After looking at the gameflow data I have to conclude, despite some of the assessments given here, that TJD is unplayable.

I was hopeful Spencer could make a convincing case he belongs on the floor—but sadly this game didn't make that case. If there is a silver lining for Spencer the promising lineups with him in Game 1 were not tried in this one. Kerr did his best to make Spencer and Kuminga look bad by playing them together despite the regular season data indicating they shouldn't. Spencer was also played in minutes when Podz was out so he was apparently used as a substitute for Podz. But that didn't look feasible. Maybe some Draymond-Spencer lineups that were only slightly negative could work to buy Butler and Podz some rest.

On the positive side there's more than one lineup with Butler, Draymond, Hield, and Podz that looks strong. Kuminga and Santos might be playable with them. The sticking point is one of the main things the Dubs need is a playmaker who can give Butler time to rest. If Draymond and Podz play with Butler during all his minutes there is no one to make plays for the rest of the team while they sit. Credit to Podz he looked like the only playmaker who was able to keep the non-Butler lineups from tilting negative. I get the feeling Butler and Podz will need to be split up for some stretches if they are going to get any rest in a game without sinking the team.

[AirP.]

I'm unsure how fruitful this in-game tryout went. After looking at the gameflow data I have to conclude, despite some of the assessments given here, that TJD is unplayable.

I was hopeful Spencer could make a convincing case he belongs on the floor—but sadly this game didn't make that case. If there is a silver lining for Spencer the promising lineups with him in Game 1 were not tried in this one. Kerr did his best to make Spencer and Kuminga look bad by playing them together despite the regular season data indicating they shouldn't. Spencer was also played in minutes when Podz was out so he was apparently used as a substitute for Podz. But that didn't work. Maybe some Draymond-Spencer lineups that were only slightly negative could work to buy Butler and Podz some rest.

On the positive side there's more than one lineup with Butler, Draymond, Hield, and Podz that looks strong. Kuminga and Santos might be playable with them. The sticking point is one of the main things the Dubs need is a playmaker who can give Butler time to rest. If Draymond and Podz play with Butler during all his minutes there is no one to make plays for the rest of the team while they sit. Credit to Podz he looked like the only playmaker who was able to keep the non-Butler lineups that didn't tilt negative. I get the feeling Butler and Podz will need to be split up for some stretches if they are going to get any rest in a game without sinking the team.

Even if Podz starts, Kerr needs to split him and Butler up so at least one of them is always on the court. I don't think Podz is ready currently in his career to do this but he's really the best option with Curry out and the more you play Butler to run the offense the less you have to worry about the non-Butler minutes.

Kuminga calling his own number so often to me is normally a problem but when the offense is just passing the ball to the defense to start a fast break, having Kuminga out there is the better option, at least you're getting more shots up and not giving Minnesota a fast break.

Although the offense ran better with Butler on the court, he sure did put some of his teammates in bad positions by picking up his dribble near the end of the shot clock and throw the grenade to a teammate. When he's in scoring mode this doesn't happen, he figures out a way to get the shot up but when in this facilitator mode in tough games this does happen, so although Butler can calm down an offense, he sometimes screws over his teammates.

I think Kerr decided to punt this game since they stole game one and with that, Butler didn't go into scorer mode. I think there has to be an understanding that Butler has to be a scorer in the home games with Curry out. When he's in scorer mode he's much sharper with some of his moves, including his ball swing move to get the defender on the wrong foot to allow Butler to get by them easily.

Hopefully this was just a calculated move by Kerr to not push Butler for a couple more days in hopes his injury is a little less than it is now because as a fan of Butler's, I sure didn't like Butler not going into scorer mode last night.

[Onus]

totally agree. there seem to be no lessons learned from this particular game apart that moody is unplayable at this stage and hield is the only one who can make a 3. there is not much to figure out, they need to play lockdown defense everygame, deny them the 3 point line, win the rebound battle and give edwards different coverage throughout the game. these are the basics. without these the rest is meaninghless.

Lesson learned is that this is a jk and tjd series. Moody and post aren’t really playable. Not sure we can just dump the ball to Jimmy and have him carry the offense every time down the floor either. Not a great matchup for that. I mean the wolves stopped Luka and lebron who are much better at it than Jimmy is. I wouldn’t really expect a playoff Jimmy take over.

If Jimmy and dray were in their 20s fine push them 40 every game but they’re both 35 coming off a grueling 7 game series playing every other day. This game was always going to be tough to get and we weren’t really close enough to push them to 40 especially without Steph and without Jimmy being able to dominate.

We just need to win 1 of the next 2. Probably game 4 would be my guess where Kerr starts to stretch their minutes again unless game 3 is close or can hit some 3s in that game.

is it? what is the chance that TJD and JK becoming completely unplayable next game? I say pretty high. JK was having the hot hand tonight and they should have put more effort in this because you will probably never get another game like this again. What i think will happen is JK start on Saturday we are down 15 1st quarter again then Kerr will wave the white flag and try something else in g4....role player are role players afterall.

stat of the day: TJD: 6/6 for 15 pts but -15 in 20mins

Completely unplayable? Highly unlikely since Moody and Post are completely unplayable. Moody is completely lost offensively. Post can't hang with the athleticism and space in this series. If JK and TJD are also unplayable then that means we're only playing 7 players the rest of the series? Not happening.

Probably won't get a scoring game as efficient as JK just had but they both can put the ball in the hoop which is what the team needs with Steph out.

[Impuniti]

I missed first half…after checking boxscore I thought that Kerr is in preseason mode…13 players played in first half.

Yes, after Kerr got behind 13-0 to start, he decided to just throw crap against the wall much like a pre-season game. Not a care in the world.

He was testing out all kinds of variations. And considering the circumstances if there's a game to do it in this series, it would be this one. This was always going to be a loss, hopefully he and the team learned some things to take 1 win in the next 2 games.

[Impuniti]

There it is, Kerr punted the game.

Read on Twitter

Butler still feeling the effects of the 1st round injury.

Read on Twitter

It's crazy that it's taking this long to heal. Kerr said he would have been out for 1-2 weeks during the RS. I suppose playing has slowed down the healing process.

[kuly1990]

well you can see that Jimmy is not 100 percent, Kuminga has a great game, but still too many mistakes by him, he always has to make mistakes on defense, and turn the ball over on offense, Moody played one of the worst games i ever seen from a nba player, its sad because this series was winnable, but without Curry, with getting a very little from Podz, nothing from Moody, Gui and Post, a lot of bad along with good with Hield and with Jimmy not being healthy its gonna be almost imposible

[Grumpy Heat Fan]

dang I was really busy IRL and couldn't follow game 2

[AirP.]

There it is, Kerr punted the game.

Spoiler:

Read on Twitter

Butler still feeling the effects of the 1st round injury.

Spoiler:

Read on Twitter

It's crazy that it's taking this long to heal. Kerr said he would have been out for 1-2 weeks during the RS. I suppose playing has slowed down the healing process.

Right, out 1-2 weeks to let it heal, Wednesday's game was the 2-week mark since the injury. Since the injury Butler's played 6 games with an average of just under 38 minutes a game.

[cpower]

our worst defensive player in the series so far:

JK : 119 Drtg
Moody: 120 Drtg
TJD: 115 Drtg

[Outside]

dang I was really busy IRL and couldn't follow game 2

Don't worry, those who watched the game couldn't follow it either.