Getty Stephen Curry and Andrew Wiggins of the Golden State Warriors.
The Golden State Warriors have fallen into the trap of road games once again. A five-game win streak – all of which were at home – had the Warriors on cloud nine. They were finally breaking away from the .500 mark, where they’ve hovered all season long.
However, they’re now on a road trip and have started the stretch 0-2, bringing them right back down to just two games above .500. After their recent loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Stephen Curry sounded off on what the difference is from the team’s win streak to now and how they need to adjust. He name-dropped Andrew Wiggins in the process, noting that the team played well when he and Wiggins were out because they were more motivated.
“The fact that we are not in a safe enough spot to do that,” Curry said via the NBA Interviews YouTube channel. “You just got to look at the standings and keep it real. We have some tough opponents coming up, so [it’s] just a matter of, what we did on the road while me and Wiggs and GP [Gary Payton II] are out. I mean, they won five games in a row. Because you can rally around being short-handed, and the guys played amazing. When we come back on the road, those same principles apply because it’s way harder to do it away from Chase [Center], and we obviously haven’t shown that we can do that. And like I said, we’re not in a safe spot in terms of the standings or where we’re at, or just the vibe around how we’re playing. So, we got to keep repeating that until you’re blue in the face until you actually do it.”
Wiggins has been out for a long while due to personal reasons and will continue to be out indefinitely.
Curry returned from injury at the start of this Warriors road trip but has been unable to lead his team to wins just yet. He played well against the Thunder, though. The superstar point guard finished the game with 40 points, six rebounds, and seven assists on 14-of-23 shooting from the field and 10-of-16 shooting from behind the three-point line.
Josh Giddey Name-Drops Steph Curry & Klay Thompson
After the game, Thunder guard Josh Giddey also had something to say. He noted that the Thunder had to keep pushing throughout the game, as with Curry, Klay Thompson, and the rest of the Warriors on the other end, they were never going to let up.
“It seemed like that [they were] not going to go away easily,” Giddey said via the Thunder’s official YouTube channel. “Steph [Curry] made some big shots, Klay [Thompson], you know, [Jonathan] Kuminga was good down the stretch for them. And obviously, we were trying to take away a lot of their threes, so they got some dunks and layups, but you kind of got to pick your poison with those guys down the stretch. But I thought on the other end, we executed really well. They started blitzing Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander] in the last few minutes, but guys were ready to make plays out of it. We got open threes [and] layups. So, I think both ends of the floor, I think for the most part of the game, we executed the game plan. We took care of what we needed to. It’s a really good win against a really good team.”
Thunder Coach Sounds Off on Warriors
Oklahoma City head coach Mark Daigneault also had a similar message to Giddey’s after taking down the Warriors.
“You’ve got to take punches to beat them because they keep throwing them,” Daigneault explained via the Thunder’s official YouTube channel. “They score in bunches, and they do a great job of generating their own energy. The game can be going poorly for them, and then next thing you know, it’s like an 8-0 spurt, and they get themselves going. They’ve done that for a decade. So, you have to be able to take some, and I thought we did a great job of that tonight. Lot of runs, but we never let ourselves get knocked down. We ate some punches and got going.”