On Tuesday, former Timberwolves star Jimmy Butler returns to Target Center with the Golden State Warriors for the first time since he forced a February deadline trade from Miami.
He’s back as the veteran player Warriors coach Steve Kerr credits for transforming his team’s season.
The seventh-seeded Warriors are 28-11 since Butler played his first game for Golden State on Feb. 8 in Chicago and are 26-8 when both Butler and Steph Curry play. Golden State reached the Western Conference semifinal against the sixth-seeded Wolves by upsetting second-seeded Houston in seven games on Sunday night.
“He turned us around completely,” Kerr said Monday in a video call with reporters. “We were below .500 when we got him, and we’ve been one of the best teams in the league ever since.
“He’s a superstar. Jimmy has brought incredible confidence and stability to our team. He was a perfect fit because he never turns it over, and we have been a high-turnover team in the past.
“I don’t know anything about what it will be like for him to play against Minnesota. The only experience we had, we played a game in Miami this year, and it did not go very well for us [a 112-86 loss in Miami in late March]. I don’t think it applies here. Jimmy is a gamer. He loves to compete. He’s excited for the series.
“He has incredible confidence that I think fuels the guys. They believe in him, and they also feel his belief in them. That’s really important. He’s a great player, one of the best iso[lation] players in the league, so in a playoff game when all else fails you throw the ball to him and he gets you a good shot.”
Butler played 69 games for the Wolves after Tom Thibodeau — his former coach in Chicago — traded for him in June 2017. The Wolves traded him to Philadelphia in November 2018.
