DNHQ After Dark: Stephen Curry owns these Wolves

A little late night fireside chat for the HQ to huddle around with Christmas cheer as we celebrate a big win over Minnesota.

There’s something about these Minnesota Timberwolves that gets the Golden State Warriors going.

Maybe it’s the fiery Anthony Edwards, a young samurai tearing his way through the league with preposterous athleticism and a competitive spirit that will not be denied.

Or maybe it’s the fact that Rudy Gobert is the exact type of offensively challenged 7-foot behemoth that the Golden Empire made a dynasty out of running off the floor, and the fact that he has more accolades for defense than Draymond Green will always rub the Dubs the wrong way.

Whatever it is, these two teams have clashed three times this season with memorable endings each time.

In Game 1, the Dubs took a 107-90 defeat at home to Minny, with Edwards letting Curry and the gang hear it with no mercy. He even made sure to tell Dub Nation to go home!

Go home in that cold Bay Area night air, walking back towards the ferry with a horde of defeated, depressed Warriors fans. When the ferry takes you back across the water to Oakland, you walk to your car in Jack London, praying that there’s no broken glass scattered across the concrete from the bippers who roam the night streets. All you want is to crawl back into your warm bed and go to sleep.

In the second contest, the Warriors ripped a win away from the Wolves as Draymond Green returned the favor for all of us in Dub Nation and put Minnesota to sleep with a Night Night of his own!

Which brings us to Game 3 of this fun regular season series, which the Warriors won in exciting fashion last night, 113-103. This was one of Steph Curry’s best performances this season, as he led the Dubs with 31 points, knocked down 7 triples, and dished out 10 assists. By the way: only one turnover!

These are the kinds of games where Curry is really like artificial intelligence in NBA 2K on Hall-of-Fame difficulty mode: any move the defense makes is the wrong one. Try to trap him on the pick-and-roll to keep him from getting a clean look? Laser efficient passing to his teammates for juicy scoring opportunities.

Hesitate to jump out on him with multiple defenders to keep the other Dubs from getting involved? You’re dead. DEAD. Dropping bombs on your head from long range like prime B-26 Marauders in World War II. USA! USA! USA!

I did some digging on Stathead to find what Golden State’s all-time record is when Curry attempts 16 or more triples in a game. Combining playoffs and regular season, there have been 73 instances, and the Dubs have a record of 49-24 in those contests.

There has to be nothing more terrifying in the modern era of NBA hoops than the greatest point guard ever spraying threes from beyond the arc with a florescent green light from his coach on the shot selection.

It’s phenomenal to me that Curry, at 37-years old, can absolutely dominate games like this on any given night. This current roster hasn’t proven itself to be one of the more talented we’ve seen during Curry’s tenure (trading for Dennis Schroder is pretty cool but we’ve seen far splashier moves).

On any given night, if Curry doesn’t go nuclear, we have no idea if this team has enough connectivity and basketball IQ to get the job done. Building good habits? Sure! But until those habits are there, Dub Nation can’t be sure of what’s gonna happen on a nightly basis.

But when Curry is clicking like he was last night, we can at least be sure that the team will be competitive, and hopefully Curry’s body and mind can continue to hold up as the franchise tries to grow up the roster around him.