Injuries to star players will likely impact crucial NBA playoff weekend

The NBA playoffs have produced some big-time drama in the first few games

but that's just a preview of what's to come over the weekend. There are three games Friday, and all eight series are in action on either Saturday or Sunday

The LA Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves are tied at a game apiece as they move their series

to Minneapolis. The two games thus far have been complete opposites. And here's something for the

stat nerds. Superstar Anthony Edwards had nine assists in the first game, and the T-Wolves won

it easily. In game two, he had zero assists and his team could not keep pace with LeBron and company

So what's it going to be on Friday? I thought we fell back into a lot of poor habits in game two

you know, offensive decision making, shot selection, complaining to the refs, all that

led to poor transition defense, ball holding. Don't complain to the refs, kids. Don't complain

about injuries either. The Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets are playing one of the most

physical series in recent memory. And star forward Jimmy Butler was hurt after a hard fall in game

two. The series is tied and Butler may miss a crucial game three Saturday, but head coach Steve

Kerr wants no sympathy. This is the playoffs. This is, you know, it's an incredibly physical sport

stuff happens people get injured and it all part of it And there no time to lament anything You can feel bad for your player but you have to move on to what next Playoff Jimmy is averaging 18 points per game

But more importantly, he gives the Warriors a strong option that draws defenders away from sharpshooter Steph Curry

Since Butler's debut with Golden State on February 6th, the Warriors have a 25-8 record

It'll be tough to beat the two seed without him. Likewise for the Memphis Grizzlies, who had a 29-point lead on Oklahoma City Friday

when point guard John Morant left after taking his own scary fall, attempting a dunk

The Thunder proceeded to pull off the second-largest comeback in NBA playoff history

and now they lead the series three games to none. They'll go for the sweep Saturday in Memphis

They built a 29-point lead in the half, so we knew all we had to do was build our own 29-point lead

You know what I mean? so like if they can build it we can erase it and that's how we see it and now that's what we did

we just had to plug away at it as dominant as the thunder have been in their series the top two teams

in the east have been equally impressive boston and cleveland both have 2-0 series leads the

celtics will try to make it 3-0 friday night in orlando and the calves will try to do the same

saturday in miami by the end of the weekend we could very well have a couple teams on their way

to Cancun or going fishing as the players like to say. For Straight Arrow News, I'm Chris Francis