Playoff preview: Minnesota Timberwolves taking on Golden State Warriors

NINA MOINI: Time for our weekly sports segment. We're going to begin in Houston, Texas, where late last night, the city's NBA playoff run came to an end. The Houston Rockets lost 89 to 103 to the Golden State Warriors.

And that means the Warriors are coming to Minnesota. They'll play the Wolves in the second round of the playoffs. Joining me with some context around this match-up, plus other sports news are Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson. Hi, guys. Happy Monday.

ERIC NELSON: Yeah happy Cinco de Mayo, Nina.

NINA MOINI: Happy Cinco de Mayo. So Wally, the next round of the playoffs, when exactly do they start?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, it starts up tomorrow night. And the Timberwolves do have home court advantage against Golden State, as you noted, Golden State beating Houston last night in game 7. The Golden State actually led that series 3 games to 1, lost the next two, included getting just walloped on their home floor at the end of last week.

But they came back. They're a veteran club. They've won several championships with some of the same cast and characters. And so they're headed to Minneapolis.

They'll be here tomorrow night. Game 1 is tomorrow night. Game 2 will be Thursday night. And the Wolves, actually, as I said, have home court advantage because Minnesota is the sixth seed, and Golden State is the seventh seed, a really unique situation in the second round of the playoffs where you have two low seeds advancing.

But if you look at the end standings at the end of the season, the third through eighth place teams in the standings were two games apart. So there was only really a two-game difference in victories between the third place team in the West and the eighth place team in the West. But the Wolves are home. They're going to be welcoming Steph Curry, who's one of greats, probably one of the all time greats in NBA history into town and Jimmy Butler who used to play for the Timberwolves.

So it's going to be an interesting series. The Timberwolves of course, coming off that 4 games to 1 series win over the Lakers, where they were not favored. But they are favored in this one. Matter of fact, there are 6 and 1/2 point favorite tomorrow night in game 1. And the oddsmakers are saying they have a 65% chance of winning this series and advancing to the West finals.

One other note, the Wolves are receiving some much due respect. As far as the overall championship odds are concerned, they are considered the fourth favorite, trailing Oklahoma City, Boston, and Cleveland as the favorites to win the entire NBA title this year.

NINA MOINI: OK. All right. So Eric, can we look at any of the past experiences between the teams to see what we might expect when they compete again?

ERIC NELSON: Well, in the regular season, Golden State won three of the four games. But I think you flushed that all down the drain when you get into the playoffs, especially with Minnesota having home court advantage. I think when you look at Golden State, you can't ignore the recent history of this franchise.

As Wally said, they have a guy named Steph Curry. He's one of the most accurate 3-point shooters in NBA history. His range is anywhere in the arena. I mean, he can sink a triple from any spot on the floor. He's got more three balls than any player ever, 4,058.

NINA MOINI: [LAUGHS] Wow.

ERIC NELSON: He's a four time NBA champion. And beyond that, he's a transformational player. His success making all these 3s has changed the game. And you can see it at all levels.

I go to a lot of youth games my kids have played, and all young players want to do is launch up three balls constantly. And that's all been fueled by Steph Curry. Unfortunately, most of these Steph wannabes are just that, wannabes.

NINA MOINI: Mm-hmm.

ERIC NELSON: Now the other thing, Nina, he's not a one-trick pony. This guy's an excellent golfer. In 2023, he won the American Celebrity Championship Tournament at Lake Tahoe, becoming the first active athlete to win that event in almost 25 years. He made a hole in one at the event.

Now some of the other Warriors to watch are Draymond Green. He's Golden State's enforcer. He's a guy who has a history of tangling with Minnesota's Rudy Gobert, put him in a headlock not too long ago in one of their previous matchups. I don't think they're going to be going to lunch during the series.

And then Jimmy Butler, he played for Minnesota in the 2017-2018 season. Then he forced his way out of the Twin Cities, throwing a lot of temper tantrums. He's going to be public enemy number one tomorrow night at Target Center.

He will be treated like a WWE villain. I expect a boos fest when Jimmy Buckets, as they call him, is introduced before the game and every time he touches the basketball. And one other footnote, the Warriors head coach is Steve Kerr. He's got four championship rings, and he coached Team USA back in the summer 2024 Olympics in Paris. And of course, Anthony Edwards was on that team.

NINA MOINI: Wow. It'll be interesting to see what happens. And I bet the Timberwolves fans are going to be pretty fired up.

ERIC NELSON: Oh, no doubt.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. So let's talk about the Minnesota Frost, Wally. So, what is going on with them? What's the latest?

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Well, they needed to win their final two regular season games, and they had to win them in regulation in order to advance to the playoffs. And of course, they are the defending champions in the PWHL. And they won them both. As a matter of fact, they won 8 to 1 over Boston on Saturday.

NINA MOINI: Nice.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: And that means that they outscored their opponents in the last two games, 11 to 1. And they had to have wins in both of those games in regulation. So they couldn't go to overtime because you get more points for winning in regulation. And they did that.

The 10-goal differential is the largest ever over any two-game span in the league's two-year history. So they will open up on Wednesday against Toronto. They will also play in Toronto on Friday.

They will return home on Sunday to play game 3. That's a best of five series. And so then the winner will go on to the championship.

Another interesting note. So Montreal who took first place in the regular season, they had a choice of who they wanted to play in the playoffs. They chose not to play Minnesota. They chose they rather would play Ottawa instead of playing Minnesota in the first round. So Minnesota ends up playing Toronto.

So interesting goings on in the professional Women's Hockey League, which, by the way, next year it will expand to eight teams. There's six teams right now, and there were six teams last year. They add two teams next year out in the Pacific Northwest with Vancouver and Seattle.

NINA MOINI: They're young and growing. That's awesome. So the Twins, I know things have been kind of up and down with the Twins, Eric, but they had a pretty good weekend in Boston.

ERIC NELSON: Yeah, they really did, Nina. It's never easy to go into Boston and win a series. And that's exactly what the Twins did. And how about Saturday for a feel good story, Kody Clemens-- and he's the son of ex Major League Baseball great and longtime Boston Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens.

So he slugs a home run at Fenway Park, one of the most iconic venues in North American sports, while Roger Clemens, Cody's mom, Debbie, and Cody's wife Jessica were watching from a suite. So that's pretty cool. And then, according to the New York Post, after Cody hit the home run, a fan threw the baseball back onto the field, and a Fenway Park attendant then tossed it into the stands after retrieving it.

But somehow, here's Roger Clemens, who would be in the Hall of Fame if he didn't have allegations of steroid use. He tracks the ball down to get it for his kid. I don't know if he had to pay some money to get it from the fan. He may have had to fork out some dough, but that was pretty cool.

NINA MOINI: Oh.

ERIC NELSON: And then on Sunday, Minnesota was paced offensively by Byron Buxton, who had a leadoff home run, and Ryan Jeffers, who had a key hit. And then defensively, boy, Carlos Correa made a spectacular catch on a parachute pop up. He's running into shallow center field from his shortstop position back to home plate, and he catches the ball.

And if you look at it and see it, remember the center fielder Buxton's coming in. So you have to also think about avoiding a collision. It was a fabulous play by Correa, who, as they say in baseball, he has a Platinum Glove. That means he's elite defensively.

NINA MOINI: Sure.

ERIC NELSON: Now what's up next for the Twins? They get Baltimore tomorrow night. The Orioles are in last place in the AL East. The Twins are still only 15 and 20. They've still got work to do in the AL Central.

But Royce Lewis and Willi Castro are coming off the injured list. That will clearly be a boost for Minnesota. They did send Edouard Julien down to Triple-A St. Paul today. But getting Royce Lewis especially back should pump a lot of energy into that Twins team, and maybe they'll make a run.

NINA MOINI: Awesome. Wally and Eric, thank you so much. I hope you guys have a great week.

WALLY LANGFELLOW: Same to you.

ERIC NELSON: Thanks, Nina.

NINA MOINI: Thank you. Wally Langfellow is the founder of Minnesota Score Sports magazine, co-host of the sports talk show 10,000 Takes. And Eric Nelson's the other host of that show, and Minnesota Vikings NFL reporter for CBS's Eye on Football and Sirius XM.