The Golden State Warriors will play without Stephen Curry for at least the next three games against Minnesota. This is because an MRI on Wednesday showed a small problem with a muscle in his left leg.

The Warriors announced that Curry would miss at least a week of games because of his injury. He got hurt on Tuesday night and had to leave the first game of the series early in the second quarter. Even without him, the Warriors won that game 99-88. Before he left, Curry scored 13 points in 13 minutes. This helped Golden State get a good lead and take control of the game played at the Timberwolves' home arena.

Every year the playoffs are about changing, like your strategy, dealing with injuries, or changing the team, so we just need to change," coach Steve Kerr said. "We've done this before and we believe we can do it again.

The second game is in Minneapolis on Thursday, and then the teams will travel west to San Francisco for games three and four on Saturday and Monday. It looks like Curry might be able to return for the fifth game on May 14th, which is good because there are three days off before the sixth game on May 18th.

Curry has never had a serious hamstring injury before, so it's hard to know how long he will be out. This also makes people wonder if the Warriors team can do well enough without the best 3-point shooter in NBA history until he can come back near the end of the series. But they should probably not expect that to happen.

Kerr stated, "We believe our defense is the best in the league, and this has been shown in recent months."

However, this Golden State team is not as strong as their teams in the past, when Curry and Draymond Green were younger and Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala were very important for their success. By 2018, they also had Kevin Durant.

After Game 1, the Warriors were happy with the team effort, led by Jimmy Butler, Buddy Hield, and Green. In this game, Coach Kerr used 12 different players.

Without Curry, Butler will control the ball often, just like he did on Tuesday. Butler, who joined the team in a trade three months ago and improved their offense and defense, had 20 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists in Game 1. He scored at least 20 points in four out of five games in the first round against Houston.

“Everyone is ready to play. Everyone who enters the game wants to make good moves,” said Timberwolves guard Mike Conley. “So you need to be even more focused on the game and your opponent, and understand how they usually play. Because they aren't just looking for Curry. Of course, Buddy and Jimmy will play more offensively, but they have other players who can score, and they might try to score together as a team.”