ALL EYES on Warriors-Wolves 👀 Ant Man WANTS SMOKE + Draymond Green vs. Rudy Gobert | NBA Today

ALL EYES on Warriors-Wolves 👀 Ant Man WANTS SMOKE + Draymond Green vs. Rudy Gobert | NBA Today

We still have a lot of work to do and there are a lot of great teams in the West. Whoever they say the best in the league, I want to go against them every night. The greatest shooter the game has ever seen. I get to play Robin. That’s my Batman. And we got all the villains over there. This young man is a star. Jimmy. Oh, what a shot from Curry. I’ve been dreaming of this all my life. Golden State and Minnesota, they’ve played four times this season with the Warriors winning three of the four matchups. But here’s the caveat, and it’s a big one. This was all before Jimmy Butler was acquired. Moments ago, Steph Curry, he spoke about playing Anthony Edwards and this very hungry Timberwolves team. I don’t know how much you can take away from him. It’s just you have to try to make every possession as difficult as possible, not give him, you know, easy looks knowing that he’s going to score. He has a ball in his hands the whole game, but he’s tough and just can’t get discouraged if he gets hot. Just with great players, but they have a little bit more of a consistency than we do probably just, you know, I know Dante missed a little bit of time, but most of their guys have been uh available, but they’re just playing way better and they seem like they’re more connective. Thank you, Mr. Curry. All right, let’s dive into this series with our reporter. M Young Massuk, who’s covering the Warrior side of all of this. Om. Steph Curry, he may have the most investigated analyzed thumb in America right now. How’s it holding up ahead of game one? Yeah, remember Malikica when they had a shot of his hand walking to the plane at the on the tarmac. Fans of course zoomed in on it to see how swollen it was and he said what when he was talking about that the feds got the fenced are on me. Um we asked him about his thumb. He was asked about a stunt this morning as shoot around and he said it’s in a great place. But he then was also asked, well, is it just a matter of it getting hit again? And he said, yeah, it’s almost impossible not to have it get hit again. But he said, I’m good. I’m good. But he clearly has it taped up. Uh, it looks a little swollen and he’s certainly battling through something. Well, I’m sure it didn’t help that the Warriors just had to go through a series that required seven games and needed a galvanizing meeting ahead of game seven that was partly organized by Draymond Green. How is Draymond using that series and what happened as fuel for this one? Malikica, in the 48 hours between game six and game seven, Draymond Green had to recalibrate himself. He had to have heartto-he hearts with his wife, his old Michigan State coach Tom Mizo, his best friend. He said he went to the spa. He told me he started listening to slow jams. He listened to Jodicy in Htown. And then he had this team meeting that he told me him, Steph, and Jimmy Butler organized. And during that meeting, he basically said, “It was on me about game six. I need to lead better in game seven. I need to control my emotions. I have more poise.” He also had a long sit down with Steve Curry at the morning shootound of game seven. And it worked. And Steph Curry said, “Look, uh, when he was asked, does Draymond need to show this in the next series?” He said no better example than what he did in game seven where he was able to control his emotions even when he had that flagrant foul with Fred Van Vleet. He wasn’t bickering with the refs. He wasn’t pouting. Draymond knows all eyes are going to be on him because he’s facing his nemesis in the seven game series. He’s going to have to keep his poise. He will be tested this series, man. Slow jams and kiking with friends and needing to call old mentors. It sounds like he’s going through it, but I’m glad that he is restoring his focus. Omg, thank you very much. the the nemesis that M is talking about, it’s of course Rudy Gobear and he spoke just moments ago about matching up with Draymond Green this series. Take a listen. You know, obviously um he’s Draymond. He’s going to be he’s going to be he’s also alltime great defender. He’s he’s going to he’s going to be really physical. He’s going to be himself, right? And uh for me it’s really about being myself and uh and also being physical and and doing all the things I need to do to help my team win. How challenging is that though? I mean, he’s presumably going to try to bait you at different times. I enjoy it. I enjoy, you know, competitive, you know, aspect of the game and the physicality and all these things. So, uh, I’m excited. Dave McMenan is covering the Timberwolves side of this series for us here. Dave, the Wolves are 21 and five since the start of March. What’s the one thing that they want to emphasize on the defensive end? Yeah, it’s about hitting the defensive glass. They recognize that the Warriors were a top five team in terms of offensive rebounding in the playoffs thus far. And when you see Draymond Green grab an offensive rebound or Jimmy Butler grab it or Moses Moody grab it, they’re looking out to Steph Curry to Buddy Heel to Brandon VMsky and getting them wide open looks from three. And the Wolves want to cut out on that part of the Wolves of the Warriors game. They know that they have the greatest shooter of all time in Steph Curry. But it’s not just Steph. As a team, the Warriors made about 15 12 threes per game against the Rockets. Five more per game. That’s 15 points. And if you can cut into that margin, the Wolves feel like they’ll have a better chance of sticking with this team that they respect the heck out of recognizing their championship pedigree. Dave McNamman, thank you so very much. Certainly the glass is something that’s quantifiable that all of us will keep an eye on, but these matchups, they’ve given us something that you can’t quite quantify, and that’s pettiness and a bunch of fun moments of the past. Do y’all remember [Music] this? This is game one Western Conference semifinals. As Curry does his magic, gets scores. Curry. [Applause] Many ways this matchup seems to be in the guard’s hands. And Drea, who are you watching? I’m I’m assuming it’s Steph. All eyes are on the greatest shooter of all time. And when it comes to the Timberwolves, everyone’s eyes should be on the greatest shooter of all times. Watch. When Steph Curry gives up the ball, the play’s not over. Two Timberwolves defenders leave the greatest shooter of all time. In this game, Steph Curry had 31 points. He was seven of 12 from beyond the arc. Look, that was in the first quarter. This is in the fourth quarter. It’s a tie game. No one knows where Steph Curry is. And Edwards, where are you going? That is the greatest shooter of all time. When the game is on the line, your habits either help you or they hurt you. There is no in between. And the Timberwolves have to have a habit of knowing where Steph Curry is. He cannot get wide open looks. And in the three wins against the Timberwolves, Steph Curry has had three 30point games. They have to slow this masterful shooter down. Yeah, he always puts out masterpieces. Yes, the guards will bring their agame, but for better or maybe for worse, the bigs, they’re going to bring the beef. Y’all remember this? The headlock scene round. How could you forget? Ever since Draymond won Dpo and then Rudy won a couple after that, Draymond has been going off. I can’t believe we have to see this ahead of this match up. But it’s it’s okay. When Draymond has the ball in his hands, it gets better. When he’s focused, when he’s listening to Dota, right, Dota, watch this right here. He loves to iso Rudy Goar. This is Steph Curry setting a screen for Dayday and he knocks down with a dunk. And then the craziest thing y’all, he did the night night. That’s Steph’s celebration. But he does that because he wants to remind everyone in the world that he is a nightmare defensively. But hey, Rudy Gobear, he ain’t no punk. Rudy Gobear on this side of things, honestly, the T-Wolf side of things, he’s coming off of his best game ever, arguably dropping 27 points, 24 rebounds versus the Lakers. both playoff career highs. I just hope can Can we not just all be friends? Can we be friends? Why can’t we be friends? I don’t know. In this series today, that might be too tall of an ask. Especially because Anthony Edwards, he wants that smoke. And he’s made it a habit of eliminating legends. Knocking out Kevin Durant, Joic, LeBron in the first three playoff series wins of his career. And now he has a shot at Steph Curry in round two. Oh yeah, he is not holding anything back. Brian Winhor is back. The second round for the second straight season. What do you expect out of him in this series that he said he wants? He said, “You know what? I want the Golden State Warriors here.” Yeah. So, let’s see how the Warriors decide to play this coming out of the gates. We saw the Lakers play him more conventionally in game four. He let them up for 43, which was a pivotal moment in the series. The Lakers were determined not to let him do it again in game five. They started trapping him more, more than they had the entire series. That is something that Ant struggled with at times during the regular season. He did not struggle in game five. He specifically started to move the ball. A lot of the times it ended up in Go Bear’s hands. They would run high loads with him and Nas Reed. Next thing you know, Go Bear is having a career night. So Ant is not afraid to use his teammates. He’s also an offensive force. He’s the number one thing on the Warriors defensive game plan. And watching how they handle him out of the gates tonight will be a big indicator of how this series might go. Yeah, a huge question. Are the Warriors going to double him? That is something that I’m going to be watching out of the gate as well as Nas Reed. He could really be an X factor in this series. The Golden State Warriors don’t have a clear answer for him looking at their roster here. But Brian, if you’re looking at what the Nuggets do you think that they can replicate moving forward in this series, what would that be? Nik Joic. Um, you know, I mean, this is a guy who in all honesty, how well he played yesterday, 42 and 22, it made me respect Zubach’s play that he had against him in the last round because he relatively held him down. You know, the the Thunder, you know, they have a great defense, but there’s only so much you can do against him. And, you know, when he’s against Chad Homer, he can push him around. You know, there’s an advantage he’s got there. So, um, you know, you know, the pathway for the Nuggets here is to ride their three-time MVP, even if he’s not going to be a four-time MVP. Oh, this is a maybe Yeah, maybe not. At least not this season, but this is a trend, right? We saw the underdogs take game one, the Knicks, the Pacers, the Nuggets. Which one do you think has the best chance to take the series? Chennai, that one’s rough. Maybe given the health situation with Cleveland, maybe the Pacers are coming in strong. But if we’re going to say all things are equal, I mean, what Jokic did is wild. I don’t want to discredit anything that the Thunder are capable of doing, but I just want to highlight one stat before we go today. They outrebounded the Nuggets. Are we Do we have tele they they outre by 20 the Thunder. That’s what they were able to do. Like I watched that first quarter. I said, “Oh, the physicality is going to disrupt. Yep. It’s a wrap. It’s going to be it’s going to be tough.” They weathered the storm. 21 offensive rebounds for 27 second chance points against the Thunder defense. That is great. It’s a lot harder to defend that second shot off of an offensive rebound. So, that is something they can replicate. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Thunder won the season. I’m not saying they will, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did. They’ve been here before. You make a great point though on the Cavaliers and their injury report. Brian, you are there for this game in 15 seconds. What are you What are you watching here? Well, I am actually in Boston. Oh, there you go. I will be watching the game. I will be watching the game. The Cavs got to do better on defense. That’s that’s the bottom line. They think defend they got a shot to even this series, but it’s going to be hard. Give me the heat. Come on. The city is feeling

On NBA Today, reporters Ohm Youngmisuk and Dave McMenamin join Brian Windhorst, Andraya Carter, Chiney Ogwumike and Malika Andrews to break down the biggest storylines ahead of Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors facing Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 1 of the Western Conference Semifinals.

0:00 Timberwolves vs. Warriors Game 1
1:24 Steph Curry’s swollen thumb
2:15 Draymond Green controlling his emotions
3:35 Rudy Gobert’s matchup vs. Draymond Green
5:28 Wolves-Warriors pettiness review
7:54 Anthony Edwards is coming for GSW
9:16 What to watch from Nuggets, Cavs & Pacers

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