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It took the Minnesota Timberwolves just five games to eliminate the Golden State Warriors in the second round of the 2025 NBA Playoffs. After losing Game 1, Minnesota stitched together four wins in a row to book a return trip to the Western Conference finals, punctuating the Warriors series with an emphatic 121-110 home win at Target Center.
The Warriors looked overmatched, as they did not get enough from the healthy players left after Stephen Curry's Game 1 injury. Without the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player, Golden State couldn't get into its usual offensive rhythm. Jimmy Butler and Buddy Hield, expected to carry the load on offense in the absence of Curry, couldn't get the job done in Game 5, combining for only 25 points on 6-for-20 shooting from the field.
Despite the bad taste left in the Golden State's mouth by their series loss to the Timberwolves, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr was classy enough to congratulate Minnesota not just for the win in the series but for its ascent to elite status in the Western Conference through the years.
“Well, first of all, congrats to the Wolves,” Kerr said in the postgame press conference (via NBA TV). They were fantastic, had a great series, beating us four games straight after that first one. Congrats to Chris Finch, Tim Connolly. They've done a great job here the last few years building this team and back-to-back Western Conference Finals. Pretty damn impressive.”
Despite letting go of Karl-Anthony Towns via a blockbuster trade in 2024 that got them Julius Randle, the Timberwolves seemingly did not lose a beat. If anything, they appeared to have gotten better, with Anthony Edwards also taking a leap. Edwards had 7.5 win shares in the 2023-24 NBA season and 8.4 win shares in the 2024-25 campaign while also improving his true shooting percentage from 57.5 to 59.5.
On another deep run in the playoffs, the Timberwolves are looking to surpass what they reached in 2024, when they lost to the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference finals.
