Andrew Wiggins insists that playing on his former team doesn’t mean much to him anymore, but it must mean something to his new teammates.
The Warriors consistently fed Wiggins in the first half with 22 of his season highs of 35 points on the way to a 123-110 routing of the Timberwolves on Wednesday evening at the Chase Center.
One game away from hitting an eight-game home stand, the Warriors use a soft schedule early in the season with a 10-1 record and a league-leading point advantage.
“I don’t think anyone gets too cocky. We are aware that the schedule was good to us. We know it’s going to be a lot tougher, ”said Warriors head coach Steve Kerr before the game. “… The veterans who have been here know that turbulence is coming. There’s always sometime in an NBA season. We’ll be prepared for it when it matters, but you just ride the wave if you like it. “
The wave continued on Wednesday as Wiggins picked the right night to break out of shooting funk with a 14v19 performance that stuck him to the team that put him on the Warriors in February 2020 Game that he doesn’t particularly reinforce when playing against the franchise for which he played his first 5½ seasons.
But it looked like the game meant a little more to him as he didn’t miss a shot until 8:13 of the third quarter against the Timberwolves (3-7), who lost six in a row. Minnesota was led by the top 48 points of last year’s career, Anthony Edwards, but even that wasn’t enough against a Warriors squad who won 124 points in their six-game winning streak.
The Warriors, who lost to Draymond Green in the third quarter with a thigh contusion for the rest of the night, took 25 points from Stephen Curry, 14 from Jordan Poole and a brilliant performance from Kevon Looney. The starting center had its second career doubles doubles (11 points and career high 17 rebounds) and limited Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns to 6v19 shooting.
Describing Green’s thigh contusion as “pretty nasty”, Kerr said he was questionable for Friday’s game against the Bulls.
Wiggins came into the game on Wednesday with 43.5% from the field and 33.3% from the 3-point range. He didn’t have to shoot many from range against Minnesota as his teammates scrambled to find him in transition and aggressive cuts to the edge.
“Andrew was fantastic with the aggression from the start,” said Kerr. “… We really needed everything that he brought with him tonight.”
The Warriors had made at least 15 3-points in each of the last five games in the last five games, but only needed 11 on Wednesday as they took a consistent path to the edge and scored 48 points in the suit.
Curry didn’t make his first shot until the 6:09 mark in the first quarter. At this point, Wiggins already had nine points in 4v4 shooting. But everything Wiggins did, Edwards made it a little better. Edwards had 16 points in the first quarter to keep Minnesota within striking distance.
The Warriors only led with a 10-1 run at the beginning of the second quarter by more than six points. Curry opened the sprint with a 3-pointer and underlined it with a steal, which he turned into a thundering Gary Payton II alley-oop and a 41-29 advantage.
With two steals in the first half, Curry has hit 1,300 for his career and, along with Chris Mullin (1,360), is the only Warriors in franchise history to hit the milestone.
Wiggins had to sit for eight minutes spanning the first and second quarters because of lazy problems, but it didn’t cool him down too much. He made all nine of his shots from the ground in the first half, including two 3-pointers and a kiss-the-rim dunk over Towns that electrified the sold-out crowd and put the Warriors 65-48 ahead.
“Chase is starting to develop its own mind,” said Curry after the 50-point breakout on Monday. “To be honest, this is an unfair comparison to Oracle. But we’re trying to put ourselves in a position where we can win games, protect the home ground, and develop a new identity of what that building means.
“We have three championships in this building. We want one in here. “
Rusty Simmons is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @Rusty_SFChron
