It was the stoppable force meeting the movable object Monday night in Washington, D.C. The Golden State Warriors had lost five straight games and played without Al Horford and both Curry brothers. The Washington Wizards had lost 11 straight and was starting WNBA star Angel Reese’s brother and three players who weren’t alive yet when “Anchorman” was released.
But Kristaps Porzingis scored 30 points against his old team, De’Anthony Melton scored 27, and Gui Santos scored 18 in 28 minutes in a foul-plagued
effort as the Warriors won, 125-117. It was a welcome win for the slumping Warriors, who have four games left on a cross-country road trip that heads to Boston Wednesday.
Was it a sloppy game of basketball? Yes it was, as seen when Pat Spencer and Jamir Watkins traded no-look passes to no one in the first quarter.
I regret to inform our readers that both players were definitively Shaqtin’ A Fool on that play.
Porzingis was the star, shooting 8-for-13 and making 13 of 14 free throws. He added five rebounds, four assists, three blocks, two steals, and a partridge in a pear tree. KP’s prettiest basket came on a great pass from Gary Payton II, who had 15 points off the bench.
Melton remains one of the NBA’s best signings this year, putting up 20+ points for the third time in four games. He shot 12-for-17 for the game and delivered one of the Warriors’ best dunks of the season when he elevated for an emphatic dunk over Sharife Cooper.
Golden State took a 17-point lead early in the second quarter, after Bub Carrington was called for a technical foul. Six minutes later, Trae Young and rookies Tre Johnson and Will Riley had brought the Wizards to within two points, though two free throws from new Warrior Omer Yurtseven gave them a seven-point halftime lead.
The Warriors got a huge break in the third quarter after another Shaqtin-adjacent play from Spencer. Second-year guard Bub Carrington broke Spencer’s ankles and dropped him, before sinking a jumper. Carrington appeared to continue chirping at the other end, and Scott Foster ejected him.
It’s very rare that Scott Foster holds a grudge or makes an NBA game all about him instead of the players, so Carrington clearly said something bad like, “Say hi to your old friend Tim Donaghy” or “You were pretty unfair to Chris Paul.”
That was the story of the game: The Warriors took a big lead, the Wizards chipped away at it, but couldn’t quite catch up. The Dubs didn’t have the players to put away the Wizards, while the Wizards didn’t have the players, at all, especially with Young and the rookie Johnson staying on the bench for the whole final quarter.
The game wasn’t locked up until the Wizards started playing Porzingis like he was Bam Adebayo and sending him to the line every Warriors possession. The final dagger came when Brandin Podziemski (10 quiet points) rebounded a Porzingis miss and Gui Santos found Payton for a layup.
Young, Riley, and Bilal Coulibaly all scored 21 points for the Wizards, who seem like they could be a dangerous team soon, if their coach was actually trying to win. But Washington is more concerned with preserving their top-8 protected pick in June than winning games, even when you’d think you’d want a No. 6 overall pick like Johnson to play in fourth quarters in close games.
But unlike the Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz in recent games, the Wizards simply refused to let the Warriors blow a win they effectively handed to them. Getting 65 bench points (versus 29 for the Wizards) went a long way, as did Santos’ four three-pointers and 16 energetic minutes from Malevy Leons (8 points, two offensive rebounds).
Porzingis trade update:
Porzingis has now played the same number of games for the Warriors that Jonathan Kuminga has for the Atlanta Hawks.
Kuminga: 23.4 minutes, 14.6 PPG, 8 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 2.4 TO
Porzingis: 21.6 minutes, 17.6 PPG, 3.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 2 blocks
The Hawks are 5-0 in Kuminga’s games. Golden State is 1-4 with Porzingis.
The Warriors remain a half-game ahead of the 10th-place Portland Trail Blazers and somehow only one game back of the Los Angeles Clippers. At this point in the season, the Warriors can’t take any games for granted or let any win pass without savoring it. Monday, they stopped a skid and grabbed a win that would have been awful to let slip away.
