What we learned as Kuminga drops career-high 34 in Warriors’ loss

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What we learned as Kuminga drops career-high 34 in Warriors’ loss originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

BOX SCORE

The third time wasn’t the charm for the Warriors on Friday night against the LA Clippers, as they lost 102-92 at Intuit Dome.

The Warriors now have played the Clippers three times this season and have lost all three games.

Without Steph Curry and Draymond Green, the Warriors couldn’t generate any offense most of the night. They scored 21 points in the first quarter, 22 in the second and 19 in the third before exploding for 30 in the fourth.

Jonathan Kuminga did show up offensively. All night long, he dominated around the rim, leading to a career-high 34 points. He was extremely efficient, going 11 of 19 from the field, with most of his points coming in the paint. He also made a career-high 11 free throws, missing just three times at the charity stripe.

If only others around Kuminga could say the same. The Warriors battled until the very end, trailing by as many as 21 points and 19 going into the fourth quarter, though it simply wasn’t enough short-handed on the first night of a back-to-back.

After starting the season 12-3, the Warriors now have gone 3-12 in their last 15 games.

Here are three takeaways from the Warriors’ latest loss, dropping them to 15-15 on the season.

Kuminga Came Ready 

Before Friday night, the Warriors had been without Curry and Green once this season. The result was a six-point win against the Houston Rockets on Dec. 5 where Kuminga had perhaps the best game of his young career.

Kuminga in that contest started at power forward and played 33 minutes. He scored a then-career-high 33 points on 13-of-22 shooting, grabbed seven rebounds and was a plus-7. Starting him with Green and Curry out again Friday night in LA seemed likely, yet Steve Kerr went a different way. Instead, Kerr started Kyle Anderson at power forward to play the Green role as a point-forward and kept Kuminga off the bench.

And Kuminga answered his coach’s challenge, playing aggressively under control, using movement to get easy buckets. Despite coming off the bench, he was the Warriors’ leading scorer…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/learned-kuminga-drops-career-high-055312159.html

Author : NBC Sports BayArea

Publish date : 2024-12-28 05:53:00

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