With no Steph Curry, it was going to be tough for the Warriors to get past the Timberwolves, but they are staying positive after getting eliminated in five games.
Head coach Steve Kerr was asked whether he will look back on this postseason and wonder about how far his team could have taken it if Curry hadn’t suffered a hamstring injury in Game 1.
“I don’t even have to think what [if],” Kerr said. “I know we had a shot. I know we could have gone the distance.”
“Maybe we wouldn’t have, but it doesn’t matter. Again, everything in the playoffs is about who stays healthy and who gets hot. Are you playing well at the right time?”
Curry wasn’t the only wounded soldier. Jimmy Butler suffered an illness, as well as bone bruising after a terrible fall in the first round.
It was a miracle he was even on the court.
Kerr explained Butler was dealing with the pain of the fall, as well as Minnesota’s suffocating defense.
“I think he was definitely compromised through all series,” Kerr said. “I think the injury in Houston definitely impacted him. He’s been playing through pain. And I think the biggest thing in this series is that without the spacing that Steph gives us, Minnesota did a great job of just playing us one-on-one. They guarded us on the perimeter. They were trying to take away our 3s. And that forced Jimmy to play a lot of one-on-one against a long, athletic team.”
“They just made the decision not to leave our perimeter guys, even our non-shooters on the perimeter,” he added. “They just stayed with them everywhere and made Jimmy play one-on-one. And because they have a lot of length and athleticism, it wasn’t easy for him to get anything at the rim.”
“Once Steph went out, it changed everything for our whole team, but especially for Jimmy.”
When the Warriors acquired Butler, Draymond Green boldly declared the team would win the title and he isn’t swaying from his beliefs.
“I think I still have that belief, wholeheartedly,” Green said Wednesday night. “That has not changed one bit. And you retool, you do whatever it is that you got to do to take that next step and give yourself a better chance.”
Butler said he can certainly see the potential of the Warriors as a genuine contender when everyone is healthy.
“For sure,” he said. “I think we all know that, we all believe that.”
