After losing the first of a back-to-back in Cleveland on Sunday, the newly-established road Warriors rebounded nicely against the young and exciting Pistons.
The Pistons brought all they could, with the starting guard duo of Cade Cunningham and Killian Hayes combining for 42 points, but another game of Steph Curry brilliance gave the Warriors a 120-109 win.
Outside of Curry, Chris Paul found his jumper again, finishing with 17 points on 6-of-9 shooting, including a classic mid-range jumper near the end to lift the Warriors to victory.
After getting outscored 34-27 in the 3rd quarter, the Warriors looked great in the 4th quarter, outscoring the Pistons 37-27 with the Paul and Curry veteran presence prevailing over the young guys.
Here are three takeaways
Is this the best we’ve seen Steph Curry?
This might sound ridiculous, but it might be something to start thinking about.
After dropping 16 points in eight first quarter minutes and hitting four 3s, he became the first player in NBA history to make four or more threes in each of the first eight games to start the regular season.
Curry has always been a 3-point savant, but there is something about the way he is starting games this season.
Curry seems to have his shot and confidence locked in seconds after tip-off, and from the jump he is establishing himself as the best player on the court.
We’ve seen Curry finish countless games down the stretch, but starting and finishing games like this for an entire season would make this regular season the best — again, an overreaction but one worth having at this point
The reigning Western Conference Player of the Week finished with 34 points, and he leads the league by a long shot with 47 threes.
It doesn’t matter the game, the arena or the quarter, Curry is in a league of his own right now.
Andrew Wiggins’ struggles are concerning
Wiggins simply has not found the bottom of the net to start the season, and after eight games of not doing so, it’s become a red flag.
Despite starting every game this season, he has failed to eclipse 20 points in a game and is shooting less than 45% from the field and less than 20% from 3.
It’s hard to see Wiggins struggling at this rate, especially when Steph and Co. are thriving offensively and Wiggins is the anchor holding them back at times.
To add to that, Jonathan Kuminga has also started struggling which doesn’t help.
Wiggins and Kuminga played 21 minutes combined in the first half and didn’t score, shooting 0-for-9 from the field and 0-for-4 from 3-point land.
It’s a positive sight to see the Warriors somewhat comfortably winning games without offensive help from Wiggins, but long-term Wiggins (or someone else) needs to find a rhythm.
Road Warriors?
Even after losing to the Cavaliers, the Warriors are now 5-1 on the road and have the most road wins in the NBA.
So far this season, the Warriors have five road wins in eight games. Last year, they had 11 road wins in 82 games.
Having almost half the amount of road wins they had last year in 75 less games might be a combination of more talent — but more importantly team chemistry.
The Warriors’ chemistry last season was publicly known for being poor, but a complete flip in chemistry and camaraderie lines up with the complete 180 road performance to start the season.
The Warriors are historically dominant at home in the Curry era, so if they stay together and play winning basketball throughout the season on the road, the wins will stack up much easier than last year.