The Warriors hosted the Nuggets tonight and surprisingly came away with a 128-117 win against Nikola Jokic’s team without Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and Kristaps Porzingis available to play.
In effect, they were without $170.8 million of their $204.7 million payroll in action today. Three players scored over 20 points for the Warriors. But the engine was a near-triple-double from Brandin Podziemski that arguably made it all happen.
The 22-year-old guard finished with 18 points, 15 rebounds, nine assists, and one steal. He fell just one rebound short of a triple-double while shooting 7-16 from the floor (43.8 FG%) and 3-7 from beyond the arc (42.9 3P%).
Following the game, Podziemski spoke to the media and revealed that Stephen Curry was in his ear throughout the game, giving him confidence in his abilities to take the shot whenever he had a good look.
“I mean, he just told me to be decisive, whatever I’m whatever I choose to do, he’s like shoot whatever shots you want to shoot, but just be decisive while doing it, and I think that helped. Usually, a lot of times when teams switch, we get a little stagnant and indecisive.”
“And so it was just attacking switches if they were going to do it. If not, you know, you know, Al was open a lot of times. So he said, just be decisive about what you do, and whatever you do, we’ll live with it. So that’s pretty much it,” explained Podziemski.
The Warriors guard has been struggling to find consistency through this season, and such a game is a major confidence booster for him, especially when he has teammates like Curry to push him to the limits that greatness requires.
Podziemski is currently averaging 12.1 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 3.7 assists while shooting 45.1% from the field and 37.1% from beyond the arc. While on the face of it, these are not bad numbers for a role player, but with the exit of Kuminga, Podziemski has now become the face of the Warriors’ future with Moody. Thus putting him under a lot more scrutiny, especially with his comments about Curry earlier in the season.
Stephen Curry was expected to be back in action tonight, but the Warriors announced on Thursday that he needs another 10 days before they re-evaluate his return, so probably by this time next week, we will have a better update on when the Warriors superstar will return to action.
While Curry has always been a strong defender of the role players amid their recent criticism, tonight the role players stepped up for the Warriors to defeat the Nuggets despite a 35-point triple-double from Nikola Jokic that eventually went in vain.
The Warriors improved to 30-27 following this win against the Nuggets, who fell to 36-22 for the season so far. Jokic’s team is now headed back home to host the Celtics after a two-day break on Wednesday (February 25). Meanwhile, the Warriors head to New Orleans to face the Pelicans on Tuesday, February 24.
