Dynamic Duo Kuminga and Wiggins Fuel Warriors’ Championship Dreams

SAN FRANCISCO — The Golden State Warriors used an utterly dominant third quarter to blow past the Memphis Grizzlies at Chase Center on Wednesday, resulting in a feel-good 137-116 victory. A stirring finish to the first half and utterly dominant start to the second turned a once-competitive game into a laugher, allowing Stephen Curry and Draymond Green some much-needed rest late as the sprint to the postseason begins.

Jonathan Kuminga was electric against the injury-ravaged Grizzlies, skying for several highlight-reel dunks and banging two triples en route to 26 points, five rebounds, four assists and two steals. Andrew Wiggins was far more understated yet nearly as impactful for Golden State, an encouraging sign as the lethargy that marked his dire early-season struggles had begun creeping up yet again. He finished with 22 points, nine rebounds—including six on the offensive glass—and three assists, playing with palpable energy and force on both sides of the ball from the opening tip.

Green was a two-way difference-maker for the Warriors, giving his team some necessary life after exchanging shoves with Desmond Bane in the second quarter. Chris Paul played like the Point God while pulling strings of the Dubs’ second unit, Klay Thompson had the hot hand off the bench and Trayce Jackson-Davis continued making his presence felt offensively and defensively at the rim.

Golden State doled out a season-high 43 assists compared to just six turnovers— three of which came in the game’s opening minutes—and a 142.7 offensive rating is its second-best so far. Not bad on a night Curry took just nine shots, right?

Looking ahead to the postseason, though, nothing from the Warriors’ blowout win is more significant than what this team can still look like when Kuminga and Wiggins scrape their peaks simultaneously.

“It goes back a couple of months now. You see a game like tonight, we’ve come so far just in terms of figuring out lineup combinations, those two guys individually playing well together,” Steve Kerr told ClutchPoints of the Kuminga-Wiggins combination. “We didn’t have that early in the season. I think where we are right now, we’re in a good place. We’ve got a lot of guys playing extremely well in their roles, and the combinations all make a lot of sense.

“Tonight was good example of why I believe in this team,” he continued, “because we do have a lot of talent and we’re starting to put it together.”

Jonathan Kuminga, Andrew Wiggins scrape peaks in Warriors’ win over Grizzlies

Curry, Green and Thompson still comprise Golden State’s dynastic core. Jackson-Davis’ influence as a rim-roller and rim-protector has quickly become indispensable, and Paul—who Kerr went out of his way to praise on the postgame podium—is quietly playing his best basketball in a Warriors uniform since returning from injury. The Dubs’ depth of quality players even beyond their 10-man rotation always looms large.

But none of that will matter come the play-in tournament nor playoffs unless Kuminga and Wiggins affect the game like they did on Wednesday, giving Golden State steady doses of athleticism and versatility every team needs to win at the highest level.

“It’s the force that he played with tonight. I thought it was maybe the best game I’ve ever seen him play on both ends,” Kerr said of Kuminga. “He was playing with intensity defensively, he got deflections, he was guarding the ball. But the way he played downhill, sprinting the floor—he is so fast. He’s electric. He’s really learning to use that more often in key times, and I thought tonight he was just brilliant.”

How many players in basketball could make Memphis rookie GG Jackson look this slow in the open floor?

Kuminga isn’t just leveraging his elite physical tools on both sides of the ball, though. Entrenched both in the starting lineup and as one of his team’s true impact players for two months running, the 21-year-old is learning to let the game come to him, broadly playing within flow of the Warriors’ offense.

“Mixed in along with that, just several plays where he caught it and immediately swung it because he recognized we had the advantage,” Kerr said of Kuminga’s approach. “It seems to me like the game is really making more sense to him now and slowing down a little bit. It was really fun to watch Jonathan tonight.”

Wiggins might have been the athlete Kuminga is now six or seven years ago. He’s clearly lost some explosiveness since his early 20s and has looked a step slow at times of late even compared to his career-altering 2022 playoff run, but remains a two-way physical force when he’s feeling confident and fully engaged.

The more the Warriors make pointed strategic efforts to unearth Wiggins’ best, the far more likely he is to provide it—a dynamic Kerr has been hinting at recently and mentioned again after the win over Memphis.

“Wiggs has had a really good stretch here the last couple months after a slow start to the season. He’s such an important player for us,” he said. “Tonight I thought we did a better job of getting him the ball in some situations…There are games where he gets a little lost in the shuffle, and I’ve gotta do a better job of putting him in positions where he can attack downhill. So I thought that happened tonight and he did a good job of recognizing what the defense was doing. He made several nice passes, he rebounded well. Just a great, great night from Wiggs.”

Wiggins gets caught going under the second of staggered off-ball screens for Demond Bane here, but still has enough length and quickness to manage a contest that at least make the Grizzlies’ sharpshooter think. What Wiggins does seconds later, off a perfect outlet from Green, shows off the type of natural gifts that can help him standout among the vast majority other non-star wings across the league.

Wednesday’s victory put some more distance between Golden State and the 11th-place Houston Rockets in the standings. The Dubs are effectively tied with the Los Angeles Lakers, who they look more and more likely to meet in a do-or-die play-in game.

Curry and Green make this team go, and will have more to say about how the Warriors finish 2023-24 than any of their teammates. But if the Dubs’ four-time champions and future Hall-of-Famers represent their floor, the combination of Kuminga and Wiggins represent their ceiling—one much higher than Golden State’s record and eventual postseason seed will suggest.