How the game rewarded Santos as next Warriors’ opportunity awaits

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How the game rewarded Santos as next Warriors’ opportunity awaits originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Gui Santos quickly apologized, blushing as his skin turned bright red. The Warriors’ 22-year-old forward accidentally let an F-bomb slip out in his postgame press conference Thursday night. The reason he did so was perfectly emblematic of why Santos played a surprisingly huge role in the Warriors’ 107-104 win against the Detroit Pistons to start a four-game road trip.

For the first time all season, Santos received playing time in the first half of a game as the Warriors missed multiple players. Steve Kerr didn’t hesitate to use the 14th player on his roster, entering him in the game with a little under four minutes left in the first quarter. Santos immediately rewarded his coach by hitting a 3-pointer and then made his next two attempts in the second quarter, too.

His fourth try from behind the 3-point line at the 37-second mark of the first half didn’t connect, and Santos didn’t shoot once in the third quarter. Santos let it fly a little over a minute into the fourth quarter, and the result appeared to be an airball. Though Santos maintains he was hit on the elbow, that didn’t deter him.

Just two possessions later, Santos screened two Pistons for Steph Curry and found himself wide-open at the top of the arc. He hesitated for a split second, but then cashed in on his fourth three of the night, to the delight of the Warriors’ coaching staff and Santos’ teammates on the sidelines.

“I was like, ‘Yeah, you gotta shoot that one. You can’t fake just because you shot an airball.’ I was just like, ‘F–k that.’ Just shoot it,” Santos said after a short innocent but embarrassed laugh.

Kerr challenged his team Tuesday after what appeared to be rock bottom in a Warriors season full of extreme highs and even more extreme lows. They had just lost by a combined 46 points against teams without their best player. Kerr called it a “crisis of confidence,” not because shots weren’t falling for his team, but how the Warriors responded.

Slumped shoulders. Shaking heads. Lack of hustle. No…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/game-rewarded-santos-next-warriors-172428349.html

Author : NBC Sports BayArea

Publish date : 2025-01-10 17:24:00

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