With rest — without Curry — Wiggins has ‘amazing’ night in win
During a timeout with under three minutes remaining in Memphis on Friday night, Kent Bazemore playfully hit Andrew Wiggins with a flurry of mock body blows. Wiggins didn’t even flinch. Nothing fazed the Warriors’ forward on a night when he produced in the absence of Stephen Curry and scored 40 points to lead a 116103 victory over the Grizzlies.
With Curry sidelined by a bruised tailbone, Wiggins became the Warriors’ No. 1 scoring option and played like it. He made 14 of 24 from the field and 6 of 11 from 3point range.
“Andrew was amazing,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “… He took advantage of his opportunities and got hot. He really changed the game in that second quarter.”
After operating in a secondary or even a tertiary role for most of the season, Wiggins had the ball in his hands for much of the game against Memphis. The Warriors ran a simplified offense and that sometimes was as basic as letting Wiggins make decisions out of pickandroll sets.
He scored at will, putting up a careerbest 27 firsthalf points and a seasonbest total by the game’s final horn. It marked the first time Wiggins has had at least 30 points with the Warriors and the 41st time he has done it in his career.
“Him setting the tone early that he was going to be aggressive and be dominant was big for our team and our confidence,” Warriors center Kevon Looney said.
Wiggins also had eight rebounds, four assists and four steals, getting back to the kind of production he displayed early in the season. In the eight games before the AllStar break, Wiggins averaged just 14.5 points on 25.7% 3point shooting, including a seasonlow three points against the Lakers on Feb. 28.
In the first five games after getting some rest, Wiggins has averaged 23 points on 55.2% 3point shooting, to go with
5.4 rebounds and 1.6 steals.
“He’s one of those guys you count on, night on and night out,” Kerr said of Wiggins, the only Warrior to play every game this season, and the one who regularly defends the opponent’s best perimeter player. “I think he was pretty tired right before the break, and he needed that rest. He’s looked fantastic since the break.”
Wiggins tried to reward himself after the game, zipping quickly out of the locker room and heading across the street to relax at the team hotel.
But after a 40point night, the Warriors’ publicrelations members knew there would be plenty of questions for Wiggins, so they made him plug into the Zoom news conference from his hotel bed.
“Steph is a big part of this team, and he’s what makes the team go. With him being out, I felt like everybody had to step up. I just tried to be aggressive from the start,” Wiggins said. … “Obviously, you can’t replace Steph. I mean, it’s impossible.
“But everybody just tried to step up and do what we could to fill in the blanks.”