San Francisco – The current Golden State Warriors emulated their “We Believe” predecessors in at least one respect in match 3 of their series of western conference series against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday evening.
For the first time since Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson wore the uniform, the Warriors failed to make a 3 -point in half a eliminatory match.
The Warriors rediscovered their identity of shooting in the perimeter in the third trimester, making 6 out of 11 beyond the arc. But they could not overcome a global cold shooting night, a handful of their mistakes and the absence of Steph Curry in a 102-97 defeat against the Timberwolves.
After doing 0 for 7 on 3 -point attempts in the first half, the Warriors found more pace in the third quarter. But for the match, Golden State was 10 for 23 on 3 -point attempts and pulled 43.2% (35 out of 81) when they took two games in the seven series.
The Warriors also granted 16 reversal points and were exceeded 44-36.
The last time that the Warriors did not make 3 points through a whole match in the playoff series, it was on April 25, 2007. That day, Golden State did not shoot the arc beyond the second half of their opening series against the Dallas Mavericks and lost 112-99 in match 2. The Warriors would continue to upset the Mavericks in the higher game.
In match 3 against the Timberwolves, the Warriors led 42-40 at halftime and struck two three points on the 2:50 in the third quarter. One came from Buddy Hield just 35 seconds after half-time, and Brandin Podziemski made 25 feet to reduce a four-point lead to Minnesota to 49-48 with 9:10 to do in the quarter.
The Warriors actually made five of their first eight attempts in 3 points in the third quarter, with Jimmy Butler by doing one with 2:04 to do to give Golden State an advance of 67-62.
It is about as well as for Golden State, who lost his head in the middle of the fourth quarter and never recovered.
Anthony Edwards made five points at 3 points and finished with a 36 -point summit to put the Timberwolves in the driver’s headquarters with match 4 on Monday.
The Warriors coach Steve Kerr knew that his team’s offensive would be extremely different without curry, who has a grade 1 tension in his left hamstrings and will not play until last week next week.
Of the 1,264 three points of the Warriors this season, 311 were manufactured by Curry.
“You cannot suddenly install a new offense in one day,” said Kerr. “But we will obviously rely on Jimmy (Butler), play through him. We will always perform similar actions, but Steph is one of the one, and many things he creates is not reproducible, because we do not call a ton of parts.
“We run Pick and Roll with Steph. He stands out, abandons him and starts to fly. There is no call for that, it’s a more concept than anything. So it’s not really playful playing. It is about playing with pace and energy, playing through Jimmy, having the correct spacing, then getting stops. We have to win this match with our defense.”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
