It may come as a shock to fans. After all, the Dubs barely defeated the Houston Rockets in the first round<\/a>. On the other hand, the T-Wolves had no trouble in dealing with the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, the Warriors proved their talent in Game 1 of the conference semifinals as they registered a gritty 99-88 win over the Timberwolves<\/a>.<\/p>\n Over the course of his career, Stephen Curry<\/a> has saved the Warriors numerous times in the playoffs. But there is only so much an injured Curry can do.<\/p>\n In fact, in Game 1, Curry played just 13 minutes before being forced to exit due to a hamstring injury<\/a>. With Curry out of the game, Pat Spencer earned some extra minutes in head coach Steve Kerr\u2019s<\/a> rotation.<\/p>\n Although Spencer played just 11 minutes, it was enough for him to leave a big impression on ex-Warrior Festus Ezeli.<\/p>\n \u201cI got to give Pat Spencer a lot of love. He was attacking, downhill, going into the paint, give the Warriors a big boost,\u201d Ezeli said.<\/p>\n Aside from Spencer, Ezeli also praised what veteran center Kevon Looney did on the floor, stating: \u201cKevon Looney, big offensive rebounds\u2026 I think he did a great job putting pressure on the rim.\u201d<\/p>\n He concluded: \u201cThis is a gritty win you can build on for rest of the series.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Pat Spencer\u2019s Game 1 performance and what\u2019s next<\/p>\n As mentioned earlier, coach Kerr gave Spencer 11 minutes in Game 1. In this limited time, Spencer finished the night with 4 points, 2 rebounds, and 2 steals.<\/p>\n He also shot 2-of-4 from the field while committing two personal fouls and one turnover. Despite that, fans loved Spencer\u2019s hustle on the court.<\/p>\n As for what\u2019s next for the 28-year-old, he may be required to consistently show up for 15-plus minutes if Steph Curry misses a couple of games in the series.<\/p>\n While Curry is listed as day-to-day, a clearer picture will surface once he goes through an MRI scan.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pat Spencer receives his flowers for stepping up in Stephen Curry\u2019s absence for the Golden State Warriors. Ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3782],"tags":[7,164,307,152,3954,6,11,868,308,574],"class_list":{"0":"post-18604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-timberwolves","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-golden-state-warriors","10":"tag-minnesota","11":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","12":"tag-minnesotatimberwolves","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nba-playoffs","15":"tag-pat-spencer","16":"tag-timberwolves","17":"tag-western-conference"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114472409197523956","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/GettyImages-2211654719-835x627.jpg\")
Photo by Tayfun Coskun\/Anadolu via Getty ImagesFestus Ezeli on Pat Spencer<\/p>\n