Preview: Warriors take on Timberwolves in Minnesota

Last season, the Minnesota Timberwolves shocked the world and fought their way to the Western Conference Finals. They defeated the defending champion Denver Nuggets along the way, and young star Anthony Edwards made it clear that he is an outstanding player who deserves high praise.

Meanwhile, the Golden State Warriors didn’t make the playoffs at all last year. With a healthy Steph Curry at the helm, they disappeared from the NBA radar for the first time, something that still seemed impossible in 2022 when they won the championship for the fourth time during the Curry era.

Now both teams have the same record of 14-12 as we are about a quarter of the way through the regular season.

Golden State Warriors at the Minnesota Timberwolves

When: December 21, 2024 | 5:00 p.m. PT

TV: NBC Sports Bay Area

Radio: 95.7 The Game

Given the gloom surrounding the Warriors’ season, it’s hard to believe they have any track record at all right now.

And after being 51 points ahead of the Memphis Grizzlies in their last game, the Warriors are now looking to lick their wounds and get back on their feet. There’s no way this team should be decimated like that, folks.

The Timberwolves are coming off a frustrating defeat of their own, losing to former franchise player Karl-Anthony Towns’ new team, the New York Knicks:

The Julius Randle Conundrum is a reality. As brilliant as he can be at times, he can be frustrating defensively, and the warts showed again in transition. After scoring 15 points on 5-for-8 shooting in the first quarter, he continued to stop the ball on offense, which led to some issues that widened the gap. “We need to let go of the mentality of doing something for others instead of always trying to score,” Finch said. Anthony Edwards added after the game that teams knew the Wolves were heavily influenced by Julius-Ant on offense. It’s predictable and it will lose even more games if a solution isn’t found.

Anthony Edwards said after the game that the Wolves had no offensive identity and he didn’t know what to do about it at the moment. That’s fair, it’s not really his job to figure that out. But this team was in a situation at the start of the year where they were trading too much with other teams and not getting any stops, and now the exact opposite is true. Where is the middle ground?

Hopefully the Warriors make sure there’s no middle ground for Minnesota to gain some momentum tonight.