The Golden State Warriors rebounded from Sunday’s devastating setback by defeating the Washington Wizards 123-112 on Tuesday night, kicking off a four-game road trip. The bench unit controlled the game, and the Warriors now have 11 wins in their previous 14 games.
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It is time to assign grades to the Warriors who completed their tasks successfully. As always, ratings are based on my expectations for each player, with a “B” indicating average individual performance
Draymond Green
29 minutes, 6 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, 2 turnovers, 1 foul, 1-for-4 shooting, 1-for-2 threes, 3-for-4 free throws, 52.1% TS, -6
Green was extremely hard on himself following Sunday’s loss, in which he did not play very well against two-time MVP Nikola Jokić. Marvin Bagley III presented a much easier matchup, and Green took advantage on both ends of the court.
He struggled a bit in the opening minutes, but as the game went on he ran the offense beautifully. And it sure feels like he’s shooting 100% on first-quarter threes this year.
Jonathan Kuminga
One of my controversial basketball opinions is I’ve always felt that we spend way too much time and energy praising players who make difficult shots, and not enough time and energy lauding those who regularly get easy ones.
So you can only imagine how much I loved this Kuminga game. There were no highlights from shots that will rank a 10/10 on the difficult meter. Instead, the highlights will come from nearly breaking the rim off the backboard from uncontested dunks after Kuminga repeatedly got himself high-percentage looks.
Some come from beating defenders off the dribble. Some came from making the right reads on cuts and cashing in on the greatly-improved chemistry that he has with his teammates. And some came from simply out-hustling players down the court in transition.
