SAN FRANCISCO — Andrew Wiggins and his coach, Steve Kerr, were both able to admit after avenging their loss to the Suns that Golden State’s newly aggressive wing wasn’t at his full capacity in their first meeting earlier this week.
At full health Friday, Wiggins showed what he is capable of with 19 points while shadowing Chris Paul on defense in the Warriors’ 118-96 win Friday, evening the season series with the Warriors’ top competition in the West after a loss Tuesday in the desert. Back spasms bothered him the morning of their first clash, and he turned in his quietest performance since his awakening against Minnesota.
“I thought Wiggs was fantastic defensively, just setting a tone on Chris right away, hounding him everywhere he went,” coach Steve Kerr said. “And also contributing offensively the way he did, I thought Wiggs had a great game.”
Wiggins said he felt far better Friday. It showed.
With Devin Booker out, Wiggins took on the task of guarding Paul, the Suns’ slippery point guard, often picking him up at halfcourt. Paul scored 12 and dished out eight assists, but Phoenix was outscored by 12 in his 32 minutes, while the Warriors won the matchup by 24 points during Wiggins’ 30 minutes.
“He’s the head of the snake. He’s the one who gets everyone the ball and can control the tempo of the game. That’s hard to do. That’s CP. I just do my best,” Wiggins said, adding he wanted to “… just make it hard for him. Make him a little uncomfortable. Take away what he wants to do. And when he gives the ball up, deny him.”
All in all, Friday will go down as a better day in Wiggins’ journal in more than one regard.
Tuesday ended poorly for all of the Warriors, but it started on a particularly sour note for the 6-8 Ontarian.
“I woke up,” Wiggins recalled, “went to the end of the bed, put my left sock on, then I tried to put my right sock on and halfway down, it just froze up on me. … The whole day I was just trying to warm up and get it to the point where I’d be able to go on the court and do something to help the team”
He was questionable up until an hour before tipoff. After going through warmups, he was cleared to play but was clearly hobbled. When the Warriors needed another offensive threat on an off-night from Steph Curry, Wiggins delivered 10 points, his lowest scoring total of the season.
Wiggins’ newfound force on offense, which had transformed him into a 22.4-points-per-game scorer in the 10 games since a 35-point eruption against his former team, disappeared Tuesday but was back on display 72 hours later.
“We could see during the game and then on tape, he was laboring the other night with the back spasms,” Kerr said. “Fortunately everything cleared up pretty well over the last couple days and he looked much more active and energetic.”
Wiggins said he underwent “a lot of treatment” and credited the Warriors training staff. A knee injury sidelined him briefly in training camp, which he has said impacted his start to the season. But ever since the Minnesota game, he’s been playing his best basketball since joining the Warriors. In those 12 games, Wiggins is shooting 53% from the field and making 41% of his attempts from beyond the arc.
Wiggins scored three of the Warriors’ first four buckets Friday, including a slam dunk finish on one feed from Draymond Green. It was clear his bounce was back on an even more emphatic attempt later on in the second quarter, a reverse alley oop that went careening off the rim.
It would have only put another exclamation point on a 22-point Warriors win, which snapped the Suns’ 18-game winning streak.
“We feel like they outplayed us the other night. It was a game we feel like we should’ve won, but we didn’t really play our best,” Wiggins said. “So we had to lock in today … play together on both sides of the floor and protect our house.”
