What we learned when Wiggins rejoins Warriors in preseason win over Lakers originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
The Warriors’ perfect preseason continued Tuesday night in Las Vegas as they defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 111-97 to improve to 5-0.
The teams will play each other again Friday night at Chase Center to wrap up the exhibition schedule.
Andrew Wiggins shook off some rust in his Warriors preseason debut, scoring 11 points in 21 minutes, and that added another wrinkle to the questions about what Golden State’s starting lineup will be.
Steph Curry scored 16 points on just 6-of-18 shooting and 3 of 11 from 3-point range, but he also had five rebounds, six assists and two steals, giving the fans in Sin City plenty of reasons to get out of their seats. . .
The preseason 3-point barrage of the Warriors continued, too, when they built 45 long-range shots but made only 14. However, they outscored the Lakers 55-50, had 12 more points in the paint (52-40) and took. better turnover advantage (20 Golden State points off 12 LA turnovers, compared to 11 off 14).
Brandin Podziemski did not play because of a broken nose he sustained in Golden State’s previous game, and De’Anthony Melton was ruled out with a strained back on Tuesday morning.
Here are three takeaways from the Warriors’ win over the Lakers at T-Mobile Arena.
Wiggs is back
Before the preseason began, Warriors coach Steve Kerr raved about the kind of shape in which Wiggins appeared and publicly praised him for being the number 2 winning option of the equipment. Then illness sidelined Wiggins for all of training camp and the first four preseason games until this contest in Vegas.
Immediately inserted into Golden State’s starting lineup, Wiggins’ first shot attempt was a missed floater that missed. On his next scoring opportunity, he took advantage of an open lane and some porous defense from Laker guard D’Angelo Russell, who fouled Wiggins on his way to the basket. He drained both free throw attempts, which represented his only two points in the first quarter, as well as the first half.
Wiggins sat the final seven minutes of the first quarter and returned at the start of the second. He only took one shot in the second quarter, missing a 3-point attempt, and he also missed two shots within the first minute of the third quarter, before an uncontested dunk gave him his first layup.
While Wiggins got off to a slow start offensively, with 3-of-9 shooting, he was 5 of 5 at the free throw line and, more importantly, had several strong defensive stretches.
Turning on the starters … again
The trickle-down effect of Wiggins’ return was yet another new starting lineup.
The Warriors have now played five preseason games and used five different starting fives. This one also had Wiggins in a different position than usual.
Instead of his typical role at small forward, Wiggins moved down to shooting guard, joining Curry in the backcourt. They were joined by Jonathan Kuminga, Draymond Green and Trayce Jackson-Davis. That group was never on the court together last season.
If Kuminga does indeed transition to more than three, it’s certainly possible that these five players will see time together — whether they all start or not.
The span looks more like the mid-1990s than 2024, but that doesn’t take into account the shooting improvements Kuminga has shown, and fingers crossed that last season was an outlier of bad shooting for Wiggins. Essentially, the group surrounds Curry with more length, athleticism and defense.
When Kerr made his first substitution, bringing on Buddy Hield for Wiggins, the Warriors trailed 16-14 at the 6:10 mark. The group didn’t share the court together again until the start of the second half, when Golden State led 58-51. The score was then 67-59 in favor of the warriors when Hield entered for Wiggins.
In total, the Curry-Wiggins-Kuminga-Green-TJD starting five played 11 minutes and 8 seconds together, and were minus-1.
Moody Mania
Wiggins’ return was guaranteed to be the main storyline of the game. Kerr changing his starters again was another easy talking point.
He will let his game speak for him, but somehow Moses Moody keeps finding ways to deserve more recognition.
Moody, through three quarters, was plus-20. His final plus/minus was plus-17 in 19 minutes, second only to Kyle Anderson’s plus-22 in 17 minutes.
The longer the preseason goes on, the more evident this becomes Moody needs to get rotation minutes. He earned them. For his fifth act of the preseason, he came off the bench and effectively scored a team-high 21 points on 7-of-13 shooting and 5 of 7 from deep, with five rebounds and two assists.
Moody is now shooting 44.8 percent from behind the 3-point line this preseason.
Kerr’s decisions won’t be easy with such a deep rotation. His decision on Moody should be easy, though, if the guard keeps playing like this.
