Post game party thread: Warriors pick up road win #2!

Huge 1st quarter blitz gives Golden State enough cushion to carry through for a relatively easy win

The Golden State Warriors just doubled their total road wins, knocking the stuffing out of the Minnesota Timberwolves 137-114. If it’s possible, the game wasn’t as close as the final score makes it seem. Stephen Curry, Andrew Wiggins, and Draymond Green all helped dominate this game in different ways; but the real haymaker came in the form of a nasty 47-27 point advantage in the first quarter.

Curry (25 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists) was everywhere tonight - leading the team in both scoring and rebounds. But Wiggins was the player that seemed to be at the focal point of early tone setting today. Here’s the very first play of the game:

Dalton Johnson @DaltonJ_Johnson

When Wiggins plays the Wolves 👀

That’s a one-handed power dunk, around 10 seconds into the game and it only got worse as the first quarter progressed. The Warriors dominated with an efficient 76% shooting as a team.

Joe Viray @JoeVirayNBA

That's a 174.1 ORTG for the Warriors in the first quarter.

From there, it was a push for most of the rest of the game. Golden State keeping the Timberwolves at arms length until a late push in the 4th got the lead down to 10. But there was only the slightest of irregular heartbeats for me. It just felt like one of those games that the Warriors weren’t going to allow to end in a loss.

I’ll leave the detailed breakdown for my fellow DNHQ authors, but we are starting to see some of the early concerns getting brushed over in expected ways. There was an absolutely bonkers late three from Klay Thompson (21 points, five made threes) that made zero sense, but was an absolute momentum killer for the Minnesota comeback attempt. We also got some very interesting and good spot minutes for Kuminga off the bench. His combination of size, athleticism, and willingness to play team basketball are going to make it easier and easier for the coaching staff to find minutes for him.

Joe Viray @JoeVirayNBA

Jonathan Kuminga forces Anthony Edwards into a long two that misses. Then sets the double drag on the other end. Two on the ball, short roll to Looney, Kuminga well positioned in the dunker spot to finish the 2-on-1 situation.

Jordan Poole scored 24 off the bench, and has really shown the effects of the rotation change that pairs his primary minutes with some combination of Wiggins and/or Green to help with the playmaking and scoring duties.

Golden State is off tomorrow before facing Luka Doncic and the Mavericks on Tuesday.