The NBA season continues into the second round of the playoffs as the Minnesota Timberwolves take on the Golden State Warriors in a best of seven series.
The Timberwolves progressed after defeating the Los Angeles Lakers 4-1 in their series in the first-round, while Steph Curry’s Warriors side got the better of the Houston Rockets in a thrilling game 7 to take the 4-3 win.
Both teams will now go head-to-head for a place in the next round, and we’ll take a look at the market before providing you with our best free NBA betting picks to see if we can earn you some extra cash while you enjoy the action on the court.
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The Warriors started the season in imperious form despite a quiet off-season, winning four of their opening five games as Curry and Buddy Hield started on fire, helping the team defeat Portland Trail Blazers, Utah Jazz and New Orleans Pelicans twice.
They also then won six of their opening seven games in November, with a disappointing 136-117 defeat to the Cleveland Cavaliers coming between two three-game winning streaks. The second streak was ended by a defeat to the LA Clippers, before back-to-back wins over the Atlanta Hawks and New Orleans once more. However, Golden State suffered four consecutive defeats to end the month in a disappointing turn of events.
That sparked the beginning of an awful turn of form, as the Warriors then lost nine of their next 13 games. Their only wins in December came against Houston, Minnesota (2) and Phoenix Suns. During that run however, Jonathan Kuminga stepped up and shone as a key shooter.
January was better for the DubNation as they went 8-8, and that sparked a stunning turn of form for the rest of the season and between February, March and April the team would only lose ten more times in the regular season.
In that timeframe the team won 24 games, including a seven-game win streak in March following the arrival of superstar Jimmy Butler to help Curry, and the team eventually qualified for the postseason thanks to a Play-In win over the Memphis Grizzlies, before their 4-3 playoff series win over Houston.
The Timberwolves have had a decent season themselves under head coach Chris Finch, and will now feel as though they have a real chance of making an impact in the latter stages of the playoffs.
A slow start to the campaign saw them go 9-10 over the first two months of the season, but they found their rhythm shortly after and went 8-5 in December in order to improve their standing in the division. A five-game winning stream at the end of January helped them improve to 27-21 too.
February was a difficult month for them, however, causing them some issues as they went 5-8 including a 1-4 run after the All-Star break.
But following that period of poor results, they finally clicked into gear, starting March with an eight-game winning streak as they went 11-3 before then ending the regular season by going 6-1 in April, with their only defeat coming against the Milwaukee Bucks.
They headed into the playoffs with Julius Randle, Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert all in exceptional form and looking to cause an upset, and they did just that. Four dominant performances against the LA Lakers saw them claim a 4-1 series win to progress, with Edwards in particular standing out as a star man.
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During the Warriors’ series against the Houston Rockets, we saw the team struggle against an athletic, physical defense with a big size advantage. When they come up against the Timberwolves, they will face all of those things again but with even more quality to go with it.
Minnesota will have their superstar scorer Anthony Edwards leading the charge too, something Houston lacked, and that is arguably the difference between a Warriors series win and a Minnesota series win.
These teams are much closer than their respective first-round series results may indicate, and it’s always hard to pick against Steph Curry in the post-season. But it’s clear that Edwards is going to be a game-changer in a positive way for the Timberwolves, and also in a negative way for the Warriors.
The Timberwolves have much more shooting, and they also have the home advantage in the series. Expect Golden State to make home advantage count, but the safe money is on Minnesota getting it done at -200.
There is a lot of value, however, in taking the Timberwolves to get the job done in six at +450, so that’s something to look at too.
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About the Author
Daniel is a football writer who has a great thirst for the Premier League and other major European leagues. A lover of the beautiful game and a firm believer that the eye test is better than statistics. Also an avid MMA fan.
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