MINNEAPOLIS — Late in the fourth quarter of a game closer than it should have been, Steph Curry recognized he had Trey Lyles on a switch. Lyles might as well have been a traffic cone.
Curry went between the legs, threw a head fake, feigned a stepback, tried an inside-out dribble, and crossed behind his back. The seven-dribble combination gave Curry a step, and he finished with a finger roll off the glass.
In a game billed as a matchup between Warriors rookie Yaxel Lendeborg and former Warriors prospect Jonathan Kuminga, Curry more than stole the show. He was the show. The two-time MVP scored 19 of his 44 points in the second quarter before helping inch Golden State (2-3) across the finish line amid a shaky fourth quarter in a 119-114 victory to cap an impressive 2-1 road trip.
Curry’s first 40-point game of the season was the 76th of his regular-season career. His 46 games of 40 or more points after turning 30 are the most in NBA history — two more than Michael Jordan. No other player his height has ever scored 40 points in a game after turning 35; Wednesday was his 15th such performance.
“I caught myself shaking my head like, wow, a couple times,” Lendeborg said. “But once he got out the game, it’s like this is my opportunity to help him out. Help his [greatness] be worthwhile.”
Thirty-eight-year-olds aren’t supposed to be doing this. Just like they’re not supposed to sprint 70 feet and dive for loose balls in a 23-point game. But this is Curry, and it’s still his team, his franchise, and — on nights like Wednesday — his league.
Over his last six quarters, Curry has scored 65 points on 18-for-34 shooting. He put together a perfect shooting percentage in Denver, then was even better two nights later in Minneapolis.
“I just see him doing what Steph Curry does,” coach Steve Kerr said. “I mean, he’s going to have games like this, and he’s going to have some quiet ones, but it’s like, I’ve been watching this for so long, it never surprises me when he gets hot. What makes him special is it can happen at any time.”
Especially in the first half, the Warriors’ offense was clicking. They were intentional about getting into their actions early in possessions and often mitigated Minnesota’s aggressive ball denials by going backdoor and setting off-ball screens.
As always, Curry’s gravity makes those actions so much more potent.
“Just lets us play in space,” Curry said of the early-possession execution. “You make a defense make decisions, whether they want to be up at the level, blitz, switch, you name it. You want to make them make decisions where you have space … it’s a good way to create an advantage.”
On one after-timeout play, Brandin Podziemski ran off a double ball screen as Curry simultaneously set a back screen to spring Gary Payton II downhill and force Minnesota’s defense to react. The Wolves had to respect Payton diving to the hoop, leaving Curry curling wide open for a 3-pointer.
Before Curry’s masterpiece, much of the pregame buzz centered on Kuminga and Lendeborg. It was the first meeting between the Warriors’ two most highly touted draft picks since James Wiseman.
Both Kuminga and Kerr took the diplomatic route publicly. The Warriors’ coach repeated the longstanding company line by wishing the former No. 7 pick well and expressing happiness for his success. Kuminga reconnected with Curry and his former coaches.
“It’s another game, like just any other team,” Kuminga said pregame. “For sure going to be some familiar faces, people that I spent a lot of time with in past years. But it’s just another day, man.”
Kuminga’s tenure with the Warriors is over, and whichever direction his career goes doesn’t matter for Golden State. Constantly comparing Lendeborg to Kuminga isn’t productive.
“They’re very different players,” Kerr said when asked to compare the two forwards. “So yeah. This is a different era for us.”
The last part of that quote is particularly relevant.
When Kuminga entered the league, the Warriors were hell-bent on competing for championships. They won it all in 2022 and kept pushing to return to the top. That type of situation isn’t always conducive to developing certain young players who need to grow by playing through mistakes. Kuminga suffered through frequent role and position changes while seeking more scoring duties.
For one reason or another, Kuminga never became the co-star Golden State envisioned when it drafted him seventh overall.
Lendeborg might be. Now that the Warriors are no longer title favorites, they can afford to focus more energy on developing a young player such as Lendeborg. They can allow him to play through mistakes more freely and learn from them.
Against the Timberwolves, Lendeborg turned it over a season-high seven times; he said he was playing “hella soft” and “timid,” admitting that his sore foot was on his mind and his heavy early-season minutes caught up to him a bit. But Kerr stuck with him, and Lendeborg finished with 26 points and nine rebounds.
The 24-year-old rookie became the sixth player in NBA history to record at least 100 points, 40 rebounds, and 20 assists in his first five games. Kuminga had ample opportunities in his four seasons with the Warriors even if certain roster construction quirks or schematic decisions didn’t fit him perfectly. He never did anything quite like that.
Right after Curry’s combination to toast Lyles in the fourth quarter, Curry hit Lendeborg with a crosscourt pass in transition. Lendeborg took one step before lifting off and hammering home a jam.
This might be a new era, but it’s still Curry’s.
That won’t change as long as he’s capable of putting together nights like this.