SAN FRANCISCO — About 90 minutes before tip on Saturday night, Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry went through a pretty strenuous workout on the team’s practice court in the dungeons of Chase Center. It was the clearest initial step in what Curry hopes to be an expedited return from the hamstring strain that has come to define this second-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Curry didn’t push it to full speed, according to a team source. He’s yet to burst or cut or test that left hamstring in a manner that’ll deliver him and Rick Celebrini — the team’s lead medical decision maker — the true information they’ll need on whether the hamstring is healed enough to return deeper in this series. But he went through a medium-speed shooting routine and rode the stationary bike. This was a notable advancement for Curry in his race against time.
Ninety minutes later, Curry was dressed in a gray sweatsuit on the sideline, watching his Warriors fail in their second crack at a win without him. The Timberwolves won Game 3: 102-97. They’re up 2-1 in the series. Curry hasn’t been officially ruled out for Game 5, but the internal message in the aftermath of Curry’s injury has always been about getting that second win to stretch it past next week’s three-day break, giving Curry a more relaxing and realistic target: Game 6 on Sunday.
“If we don’t win, we damn sure don’t have to worry about getting Steph back this year,” Jimmy Butler said. “We gotta put our big boy pants on and go out there and compete at a high level and get this one on Monday.”
They had a real chance to get it without Curry on Saturday night. Butler, as expected, throttled up the aggressiveness significantly. He played 43 minutes despite aggravating his glute injury and got up 26 shots, six more than he’d taken in any previous game with the Warriors and his most field-goal attempts since the 28 he took in Game 7 of the 2023 Eastern Conference finals to will the Miami Heat past the Boston Celtics.
Butler finished with 33 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. The Warriors were outscored by four points in the five minutes he rested.
“Man, Jimmy was incredible,” Steve Kerr said. “He really controlled the game for us and put us in a position to win, and we just couldn’t close it out. But he was brilliant all night.”
Butler spent part of his postgame media session after Game 2 sending a convincing message that he could fit on the court with Jonathan Kuminga, despite the small sample late in the regular season that made Kerr hesitant to put them together. Without Curry, Kerr’s been forced to rearrange his rotation, and Kuminga’s offensive talent has dragged him from out of the picture back to the forefront.
The fourth-year forward responded with the best high-leverage game of his life, scoring 30 points on 11-of-18 shooting in 36 bench minutes that didn’t even feel like enough, given his two-way impact. Kuminga blocked a Jaden McDaniels dunk, swatted a Mike Conley corner 3 and pressed both Julius Randle and Anthony Edwards — his two defensive assignments — out to half court.
“Beautiful sight to see,” Butler said. “Like I tell everybody, me and him can thrive together. I know how to space the floor. I can tell him, ‘Hey, when I have the ball, you go here and you do this.’ We talk. We listen to one another. I know that he’s going to be a huge part of us winning on Monday.”
Kuminga opened up the defense with an early mid-range jumper and finished 3 of 4 on 3s, but his most important offensive damage came in the paint, out in transition and at the rim. He has been aggressive attacking Rudy Gobert and Naz Reid in space this series.
“It was fantastic to see,” Kerr said. “You can see how necessary he is in this matchup, especially without Steph. We’re having a tough time getting free, and he’s obviously capable of giving us some points, getting to the rim.”
The last two games have looked more like the Kuminga who was exploding back in January before he went down with an ankle injury that kept him out for 31 games. He acknowledged after the game that he still occasionally worries about landing on that ankle and has had difficulty regaining his touch and rhythm with sporadic playing time since returning.
“I was just a little nervous on one play,” Kuminga said. “I missed a layup that I don’t usually miss. It was against Conley. The up-and-down-and-under, I was nervous landing. But just throughout the game, throughout all this time, it feels better. It’s not easy (getting the feel back), especially when you don’t get too many opportunities to be out there. I can do all that in my workouts and stuff like that, but if you’re not in the game, it’s different and more serious.”
Kuminga’s resurgence is a major boost next to Butler for a Warriors offense that is otherwise drowning without Curry. Those two power wings combined for 63 of the team’s 97 points. They were only able to generate 23 attempted 3s. Buddy Hield hit four of them to provide at least a splash of supplementary scoring, but there was almost nothing else.
Brandin Podziemski remains in a deep funk. He missed nine of his 10 shots and is now 6-of-26 shooting in this series, failing to finish inside over length and continually rimming out his short floaters.
“If things bounce the other way and we’re in here with a win, nobody cares that he didn’t score a lot,” Kerr said of Podziemski, who played 40 minutes. “When the game goes in one direction or the other, it’s easy to look at different stats or different things. He’s not a big scorer. He’s a basketball player. He does a lot of great things out there. I thought he played really well tonight. The shots didn’t go, but I’m confident they will go in Game 4.”
Moses Moody and Quinten Post received only brief first-half cameos and seem likely to be trimmed from the rotation entirely in Game 4. Gary Payton II missed both of his 3s. Trayce Jackson-Davis started at center and chipped in seven points in 11 minutes, but Kuminga’s strong play kept his court time limited.
Draymond Green’s limited production and foul trouble might’ve been the biggest issue. He committed six fouls and five turnovers in 29 minutes. His fourth foul came on a questionable block-or-charge whistle on Randle in the third quarter. Kerr challenged it and lost. Green was forced to the bench for an extended stretch.
After returning in the fourth quarter, Green was given an after-the-review fifth foul when Minnesota challenged a Randle foul on Kuminga and the officials ruled that he grabbed Randle’s shirt before contact. One possession later, on a contest at the rim, Green was called for a questionable sixth foul on McDaniels and Kerr couldn’t challenge it. Green was disqualified with 4:38 left and the Warriors down two. They lost by five.
“The sixth one was a tough one,” Kerr said. “That didn’t feel great looking at the replay, but it is what it is. They outplayed us in the fourth, and they deserved to win.”
The Warriors will rest Sunday. They’ll regroup on Monday. Then they’ll get 48 more minutes to help buy Curry’s hamstring more time.
(Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)