The next defensive challenge for Timberwolves: Warriors star Steph Curry

After the Golden State Warriors beat the Houston Rockets in Game 7 of their first-round playoff series Sunday night to advance to the Western Conference semifinals, where they'll face the Minnesota Timberwolves, TNT's Inside the NBA crew's commentary centered primarily around one question: How are the Timberwolves going to defend Steph Curry?

"At times, (Anthony Edwards) has taken the responsibility of guarding the Kyries, the Steph Currys of the world," Kenny Smith said during the TNT broadcast. "But now that Jimmy Butler is there, that's a different scenario, so I don't think he has the luxury to say, 'I'm going to try and put the fire out on Steph.' ... He's probably going to have to guard Jimmy Butler, and then there's a cross matchup with Jaden McDaniels and/or Michael Conley, which will not guard Jimmy Butler."

While it's true Edwards was the primary defender on Kyrie Irving during last year's Western Conference finals against the Dallas Mavericks, the most interesting part of Smith's analysis is the fact that Edwards has very rarely been the matchup for Curry. That's a responsibility that's mainly rested on McDaniels, who was the primary defender on Curry for 56% of those minutes in the four regular-season games between the two teams. Edwards defended Curry just 7% of the time.

McDaniels seemed to elude most of the TNT crew. Shaquille O'Neal, who also questioned how the Wolves would defend Curry, wondered whether they'd take the same approach as the Rockets, who denied Curry the ball when he'd give it up.

"They only got two guys who can really play like that: (Donte) DiVincenzo and the other young fella that can deny," Shaq said, without clarifying who the other "young fella" is. "They don't really have a lot of bodies, and you don't want your bodies getting tired chasing around Steph, so I'm going with Golden State (to win the series)."

Unless the "young fella" is McDaniels, Shaq seemingly forgot about him as well. And to be clear, the Wolves probably have more bodies to throw at Curry than just about any team with their plethora of top-tier perimeter defenders, including McDaniels, Edwards, DiVincenzo and Nickeil Alexander-Walker. Wolves coach Chris Finch also has Jaylen Clark at his disposal should he need to dig deeper into his rotation. That's a lot of bodies Minnesota can throw at the Warriors star.

"It's not going to be one person's job alone to (defend Curry)," Finch told reporters on Monday. "We're lucky to have multiple high-level perimeter defenders. Just the effort and activity is only part one. You got to have the discipline and the diligence to execute all the things that they can do to try and free him up. It's not going to just be left to Jaden alone."

There's no doubt the Wolves will throw several different looks at Curry, though McDaniels figures to get the majority of minutes against him. It's worth noting, Alexander-Walker got the second-most minutes defending Curry in the regular season, too. But perhaps more interesting is how the Wolves match up elsewhere. The four regular-season games against the Warriors — the Wolves went 1-3 — came in December and January, before the Warriors acquired Jimmy Butler.

Tuesday night's Game 1 will be Minnesota's first look at the new-look Warriors. How the Wolves decide to match up — and who the Warriors start — will be an intriguing aspect of the series opener. The real question is what these two teams look like against each other now that the Warriors have Butler and the Wolves have integrated DiVincenzo and Julius Randle.

"A championship-pedigree team," Finch said of the Warriors. "They're similar to us; they've played their best basketball down the stretch and into the playoffs. They're coming off a really, really tough series, no doubt about it, but they showed what they're made of in that series. They got us three times out of four this year, but we haven't played them with the new-look roster, so a lot of things to contemplate coming into the series. It's gonna definitely be a tough one for us."