SAN FRANCISCO – Offense often took a backseat in the fifth chapter of Steph Curry and the Warriors being the Houston Rockets’ Grim Reaper in the playoffs.
A seven-game series featured four in which a team failed to score 100 points, and only two where a team scored more than 110 points. The Warriors were outscored in both those games. Physicality became the featured word for the series, far more often than anything that had to do with shooting.
Sure, there were big scoring nights like Steph Curry’s two 30-point games, plus his 29 points in Game 6. Jimmy Butler’s 25 points in Game 1 and 27 in Game 4 – both wins – were huge. Buddy Hield was the story of Game 7, catching fire early for 33 points and nine threes.
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SIGN UP HERE In the Rockets’ Game 5 and Game 6 wins, Fred VanVleet made a combined 10 threes, giving Golden State flashbacks of Game 6 in the 2019 Finals. But the Warriors knew if they could take care of the ball and force the Rockets into halfcourt offense, they liked their odds. The Rockets shot more accurately from the field in the first round than the series, 44.6 percent to 43.3 percent, and from 3-point range as well, 37.4 percent to 35.8 percent.
The Warriors made just six more shots than the Rockets. The real difference was playing today's game, taking 104 more threes than them and making 34 more. There was a 36-point difference from deep in Game 7 when the Warriors made three times as many threes as the Rockets, 18 to six.
Playing the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round always was going to be a completely different challenge.
“Look at Minnesota,” Steve Kerr said Friday at his final press conference of the season. “I thought we did a pretty decent job at times in the series of defending them, but they've got guys, both [Julius Randle] and [Anthony Edwards], who were able to break us down, and then all of a sudden they're kicking out to three or four 3-point shooters, including a center in Naz Reid. That makes defense really, really tricky.”
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And then the Timberwolves proceeded to miss their first 16 threes in Game 1, right after bricking 17 consecutive in their Game 5 win against the Los Angeles Lakers. That was an anomaly, and the Timberwolves got an unfortunate confidence boost despite the Warriors opening the series with a win. The shift in shooting was about to be as evident as possible with Curry injured.
The Timberwolves in the four games Curry missed, all four being wins for them, put up 136 threes, 17 more than the Warriors could get off. Minnesota made 20 more threes in those four games than Curry’s teammates, 58 to 38, and shot at a much better clip – 42.6 percent to 31.9 percent. Their guys weren’t just making shots, but were willing to even take them.
Reid’s ability to stretch the floor at 6-foot-9 and knock down threes has made him a Warriors problem for many years now. He isn’t alone. The Warriors were questioning if they needed to switch more to stay in front, chasing the Timberwolves’ shooters while searching for points themselves.
The real questions were about the Warriors’ offense, looking not just like a shell of itself without Curry but a completely different system.
“Can we put more lineups together that can kind of feature both shot creation and shot-making and spacing?” Kerr asked. “It's obviously a lot tougher to do than to say.”
Looking in is the first step. The Warriors as they re-tool their roster around Curry, Butler and Draymond Green will have to ask if players like Brandin Podziemski, Moses Moody and Quinten Post are trusted enough shooters.
“Yeah, for sure it comes internally,” Kerr said. “We will continue to address that, and our players will continue to work on that. You see it, the modern game is about can you create shots, and then can you make shots? Can you surround those shot creators with spacing and at multiple positions?
“That's kind of the name of the game in the modern NBA.”
Edwards led both sides with 19 threes. Reid made 10. The Timberwolves as a team, even with that historically bad Game 1 performance, attempted two more threes than the Warriors and made seven more.
Curry played 13 minutes in the conference semifinals, scoring 13 points on five made shots and three 3-pointers. Podziemski only made four more threes than Curry all series, and that’s just because of the four he made in what was the season finale. Moody made four shots total in the series, and three 3-pointers, giving him five more points overall than Curry. Post was even more unplayable, and made two threes in the 26-plus minutes he was given.
That’s also a trio that includes a second-year pro who starts in the Warriors’ backcourt and a rookie who wasn't part of any preseason plans, but also a fourth-year pro (still 22 years old) who signed a three-year, $37.5 million contract extension last offseason.
The playoffs weren’t perfect for Podziemski and Moody. It also has to be said that Podziemski shot 43.1 percent on threes the final 23 games of the regular season, all starts, and Moody was a 37.6 percent 3-point shooter over 48 games (30 starts) from the first of 2025 to the last of the regular season.
Next season, the Warriors’ starting five will begin with Curry, Butler and Green. Steph is the one real shooting threat. The other two around him, Podziemski and Moody or not, almost have to be for the Warriors to be up-to-date with the game.
Adding, subtracting and developing, the Warriors need more juice, understanding who they have and if it's worth the squeeze.