Warriors vs. Heat player grades: Steph Curry explodes as the bench steps up

The Golden State Warriors are officially rolling. With Thursday night’s 120-100 win over the Miami Heat, the Dubs have won six games in a row, and their 0-3 start is a distant memory.

Thursday was a game they were expected to win — Miami is off to a sluggish start, and played an overtime game the night before — and win they did, though they once came out of the gates slowly, trailing by 10 early and entering halftime with a tied score. But a win is a win is a win, and a 20-point win is a 20-point win is a 20-point win.

Advertisement

So let’s grade the players who got the job done. As always, grades are based on my expectations of each player, with a “B” grade representing the average performance for that player.

Note: True-shooting percentage (TS) is a scoring efficiency metric that accounts for threes and free throws. Entering Thursday’s games, league-average TS was 57.1%.

Will Richard

16 minutes, 10 points, 2 assists, 1 block, 1 turnover, 1 foul, 4-for-6 shooting, 2-for-4 threes, 83.3% TS, -5

Richard got another start, presumably partially due to Gui Santos’ absence, and partially due to wanting to get a strong defender on the court against Andrew Wiggins. Richard played awesomely against Wiggins, who shot just 1-for-6 on the day, and also when taking turns on Klay Thompson.

Advertisement

When the Warriors were struggling to start the game, Richard was also the team’s lone source of offense … not only was he the first player on the team to reach double digits, but he was the only Dub with double digits at the half.

It’s unfair that Richard ended up with a -5 plus/minus on a night where the Warriors won by 20. That’s really just the result of him being one of their best players when they were struggling, and then not getting much second-half playing time due to other players heating up. So it goes. They got the win, he played well, and I’m sure he’s quite happy with all of it.

Grade: A-
Post-game bonus: Worst plus/minus on the team.

Yaxel Lendeborg

30 minutes, 17 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 steals, 1 block, 2 turnovers, 4 fouls, 6-for-14 shooting, 1-for-3 threes, 4-for-6 free throws, 51.1% TS,…