Golden State on a roll
Warriors ride Wiggins to 6th straight win; Green injured
Andrew Wiggins insists that playing his former team doesn't mean much to him anymore, but it certainly must mean something to his new teammates.
The Warriors fed Wiggins consistently in the first half for 22 of his season-high 35 points on their way to a 123-110 routing of the Timberwolves on Wednesday night at Chase Center.
One game away from completing an eight-game homestand, the Warriors are taking advantage of a soft earlyseason schedule to the tune of a 10-1 record and league-leading point margin.
“I don't think anybody is getting too cocky. We're aware the schedule has been kind to us. We know it's going to get a lot tougher,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said before the game. “... The veterans who've been around know there's turbulence coming. There always is in an NBA season at some point. We'll be prepared for that when it comes, but you just ride the wave when you're on it.”
The wave continued Wednesday with Wiggins picking the right night to snap out of a shooting funk with a 14for-19 performance that stuck it to the team that dealt him to the Warriors in February 2020. The 2014 No. 1 overall pick said before the game that he doesn't get extra amped when he faces the franchise for which he played his first 5 1/2 seasons.
But it sure looked like the game meant a little more to him as he didn't miss a shot until the 8:13 mark of the third quarter against the Timberwolves (3-7), who have lost six in a row. Minnesota was led by a career-best 48 points from last year's top pick Anthony Edwards, but even that wasn't enough against a Warriors squad that has won by a combined 124 points during its six-game winning streak.
The Warriors, who lost Draymond Green for the rest of the night with a
“I don't think anybody is getting too cocky. We're aware the schedule has been kind to us. We know it's going to get a lot tougher.” —Warriors head coach Steve Kerr
thigh bruise in the third-quarter, got 25 points from Stephen Curry, 14 from Jordan Poole and a brilliant effort from Kevon Looney. The starting center had his second career double-double (11 points and career-high 17 rebounds) and limited Minnesota's Karl-anthony Towns to 6-for-19 shooting.
Kerr described Green's thigh contusion as “pretty nasty” and said he's questionable for Friday's game against the Bulls.
Wiggins came into Wednesday's game shooting 43.5% from the field and 33.3% from 3-point range. He didn't have to shoot many from distance against Minnesota as his teammates made a concerted effort to find him in transition and on aggressive cuts to the rim.
“Andrew was fantastic with the aggression from the start,” Kerr said. “... We really needed everything he brought tonight.”
The Warriors had made at least 15 3-pointers in each of the past five games, but they needed just 11 Wednesday as they wore out a consistent path to the rim and scored 48 points in the paint.
Curry didn't take his first shot until the 6:09 mark of the first quarter. By then, Wiggins already had nine points on 4-for-4 shooting. But anything Wiggins did, Edwards did it slightly better. Edwards had 16 first-quarter points to keep Minnesota within striking distance.
The Warriors didn't lead by more than six points until a 10-1 run at the start of the second quarter. Curry opened the spurt with a 3-pointer and highlighted it with a steal that he turned into a thunderous Gary Payton II alley-oop and a 41-29 advantage.
With two first-half steals, Curry has reached 1,300 for his career and joined Chris Mullin (1,360) as the only Warriors in franchise history to reach the milestone.
Wiggins had to sit for an eight-minute stretch that spanned the first and second quarters because of foul trouble, but it didn't cool him off too much. He made all nine of his first-half shots from the floor, including two 3-pointers and a kiss-the-rim dunk over Towns that electrified the sellout crowd and put the Warriors ahead 65-48.
“Chase is starting to pick up a spirit of its own,” Curry said after Monday's 50-point outburst. “It's an unfair comparison to Oracle, honestly. But we're trying to put ourselves in a position where we're winning games, protecting home court, where we can develop a new identity of what this building means.
“We have three championships in that building. We want one in here.”