Almost everything Andrew Wiggins put up fell through the rim, and the Warriors rode his season-high 36 points to a victory.
Wiggins matched his career-high with eight 3-pointers — on just 10 attempts — and had a ninth but his foot was on the line. The efficient individual night was just part of Golden State’s overall 25-for-52 (48.1%) scorching shooting from deep.
The Warriors (13-11) dominated early and built a 25-point first half lead, one it never gave up. Houston cut the Warriors’ lead down to single digits in the fourth, but Stephen Curry (30 points, 10 assists) closed the Rockets out.
Golden State’s 120-101 win over Houston brings its home record to 11-1; GSW has won 10 straight contests at the Chase Center.
Here are three takeaways from the Warriors’ latest victory.
Setting the tone
The young Rockets sleep walked into Saturday night’s game, and the Warriors punished them for it immediately.
Golden State started the game on a 22-4 run. They didn’t let Houston get any good looks off. They sank almost everything on their end. Everything was clicking.
The Warriors drilled seven of their first 10 3-point attempts.
GSW went up 39-23 by the time the first quarter ended — a lead that included a rough minute with Stephen Curry on the bench. Curry himself had 12 points and five assists in the frame. Wiggins was lights out. The Warriors dished 13 assists without committing a turnover.
It was a nearly flawless first quarter. So strong, the game was essentially over just moments after it began. While turnovers and poor shot selection allowed Chicago to hang around a night before, the Warriors punched Houston in the mouth to start and hardly looked back.
An insane Draymond Green stat
Draymond Green has been shooting the ball with more confidence recently. He and his teammates have acknowledged — and encouraged — it.
He hit two 3s Friday night, including a dagger late in the fourth quarter to drop the Bulls. He’d made at least one triple in five of seven contests before that and is shooting 35.7% on the year, his highest mark since 2015-16.
So when he fired from the corner without hesitation in the first quarter, it wasn’t shocking. What was shocking, though, was the historical significance of that otherwise unsubstantial trey.
That 3-pointer was the 582nd of Green’s career. It pushed him ahead of Michael Jordan on the all-time leaderboard.
Draymond Green.
Michael Jordan.
The milestone is more of a sign of how much the game of basketball has changed than a referendum on shooting talent. Jordan never attempted more than 3.6 3s per game in a season. Green, despite being a career 31.6% shooter, has topped that twice. His career average of 2.6 attempts per game is nearly an entire shot more than the six-time NBA champ.
If Jordan played today, he’d surely adapt and jack 3s with the best of them. That just wasn’t how anyone played in the 1980s and 90s.
In 1997-98, the last of Chicago’s second three-peat, Wesley Pearson led the league with 192 3-pointers made. That would have ranked 19th last year. Entering Saturday, Curry had hit 107 in 21 games.
Sometimes, the record books don’t tell the most complete story.
Another game off for Klay
With Saturday representing the second night of a back-to-back, Klay Thompson sat — as has been standard all year. But it won’t be like that for the entire season.
“The hope is that he will play back-to-backs later this year,” head coach Steve Kerr said pregame.
Kerr added that player health and performance vice president Rick Celebrini said there’s no perfect science to deciding when Thompson will be physically ready to handle a back-to-back load. Letting him rest for one of them now is a precautionary measure for the 32-year-old.
Thompson went through a high-intensity on-court workout pregame to simulate the stress of playing consecutive nights.
Before his last two contests in which he struggled shooting, Thompson went 28-for-50 (56%) from deep in a five-game stretch.