3 takeaways from Steph Curry’s comeback in the Warriors’ loss to the Timberwolves

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – The NBA is a make-it-or-miss league.

You can play well, find good performances up and down the rotation, get the vintage 39 points Steph Curry’s performance in his first game backand they still have nothing to show for it all because of a few bad acts of basketball at inopportune times.

Fourth quarter Golden State Warriors‘ 127-120 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, who were without their star guard, Anthony Edwardshe was a textbook example of that. Here are three takeaways from the Dubs’ narrow loss to the Ant-less T-Wolves.

The Timberwolves played more when it really counted

The title should not be Quinten Post unlucky wide-open missed three from the corner that would have put them up two with a minute to play, a shot where he had all the time in the world to line up the seams of the basketball. One bad game, I can’t keep him; other factors contributed to the loss.

But that shot is representative of why the Timberwolves pulled this one out and why the Warriors didn’t. The T-Wolves made plays when it mattered and the Dubs didn’t.

Look no further than the T-Wolves’ 17-0 run from 10:26 to 5:50 of the fourth quarter. The Warriors missed nine consecutive shots in that streak. Meanwhile, Rudy Gobert inhaled every rebound and every lob that came his way in that stretch. He had 12 of 24 points and six of 14 rebounds in the fourth quarter.

And while Curry’s hot shooting would get them back in the game, even taking the lead at one point late in the fourth, they put themselves in a position where they were at the mercy of Donte DiVincenzo making clutch shots. One 3-pointer to tie the game and the other to put the T-Wolves up five with 28.3 left in the game.

That’s just how it works. Post’s solid 16 points and six rebounds will be forgotten because of one missed shot. Is that fair? Probably not. But then again, in a make-or-miss league, playing when it counts is important. Especially for a team trying to climb the Western Conference standings. That’s the lesson for the Dubs, and De’Anthony Melton summed it up best.

“We just have to capitalize,” Melton he said after the game. “We lost the rebound battle by two, which isn’t the end of the world, but, I mean, it’s a possession game. You just figure out what went wrong and take those plays out and see where it goes from there.”

Asked De’Anthony Melton how the Dubs balance the good results from this game with the bottom line being a loss:

“We just have to capitalize. We lost the rebound battle by two, which isn’t the worst thing in the world, but I mean, it’s a possession game.” pic.twitter.com/mhKAm74udA

— Kenzo Fukuda (@kenzofuku) December 13, 2025

The Steph Curry-Pat Spencer backfield has some legs

Curry can somehow make anyone work Steve Kerr puts next to him. But the way he and Pat Spencer looked together, with Kerr giving the initial nod to the two-way contract quarterback, seemed far more cohesive and sustainable than the theoretical thought process Kerr hinted at earlier this week.

Spencer allowed the Warriors to comfortably run Curry off the ball while still having someone to direct traffic with his playmaking abilities. The ball was moving well, and Curry and Spencer were taking turns at the drop of a hat; he had that energy that Curry always talks about when he imagines the Dubs offense firing on all cylinders. Kerr also pointed out that the Dubs took care of the ball relatively well because the small-ball Spencer had more of the ball.

After the game, Curry drew a comparison of what it was like to play next to a ball-handler like Spencer.

“It reminds me of Jack the Rabbit back in the day. A guy who can just hold the ball,” Curry explained. “I was off the ball a lot in the first quarter, and on purpose. With full confidence, he can run the offense. I can do some off-ball actions, and he knows how to move the ball. … We haven’t played (together) a lot this year, but anybody who has a high IQ, I can play next to.”

It was not a perfect combination. Minnesota’s size gave the 6-3 and 6-2 guards trouble. And Spencer missed several open threes when given the opportunity, prompting Kerr to go with Melton in the final lineup. Spencer will have to knock down shots like that if the Dubs are going to use him more next to Curry; Kerr was adamant about that caveat of using this duo.

But the Curry-Spencer duo is certainly viable and may quietly be one of their better backcourt duos among possible combinations.

The sense of rotation remains a little uncertain

While everyone who got minutes played pretty well, the Warriors kind of suffer from having too many options. Yeah, it’s nice to be able to pull a guy like Guy Santos or Trace Jackson-Davis off the bench if the matchup calls for it. But there’s something to be said for how hard it is to judge what’s working well when guys come and go as subs in hockey.

This team has been vocal about the struggle to cement an identity. Somehow they found him on a three-game road trip, when the rotation was streamlined due to injuries and workload management.

But during the T-Wolves’ 17-0 run, Kerr went through six turnovers in search of something to break the drought, which only really ended because Curry was on a roll. It’s hard to get guys involved when they’re playing in combinations they’ve barely seen time in. And while the likes of Melton and Moses Moody showed encouraging signs as they progressed to the finals, it was in the absence of Draymond Green and Al Horford.

Contrast that with the Timberwolves, who, despite missing Edwards, have the battle scars and chemistry to endure a close game. Curry alluded to it after the game: DiVincenzo, Gobert, Julius Randle, Naz Reed, Jaden McDaniels, those guys know how to play with each other. With the Warriors, everything seems cobbled together, even when the ball is moving and the shots are falling.

The point is, what does the rotation look like when those guys come back?

Kerr went 11 deep tonight, with Jonathan Cumminga, Seth Curry and Will Richard catching the points. With Green and Horford back in the mix, it’s hard not to see other guys bumped into the rotation. Going 11 deep is not sustainable for a struggling team.

Maybe it’s due to dealing with injuries and fielding an older team, but there probably needs to be some consolidation in the rotation. It’s still early days, just 25 games into the season, but things need to firm up before it’s too late.