Taking on a well-coordinated, young team like the Thunder is never easy. It becomes especially hard when you don’t have two key players, Stephen Curry and Draymond Green, available. While Steph rehabs his right knee, Draymond picked up a 5-game suspension. In Dray’s absence, Jonathan Kuminga stepped up and put on an incredible show.
Advertisement
However, Kuminga’s 21-point effort was not enough. The Thunder outplayed the Warriors in the 1st and 4th quarters, and that was enough for them to pick up a 128-109 win. This resulted in the Warriors picking up their 5th loss on the trot. In a video uploaded by NBCS Warriors, we could see Kuminga being asked about the team morale. The 21-year-old replied and said,
“We have good spirit. Everybody is in good spirit. There’s nobody really worried about what’s going on because these are small things that we got to figure out, and I feel like everybody is on the same page. Everybody has a good spirit. Just some things we got to clear, but obviously we going to be fine.”
It is great to see the young star and the team not letting the current skid affect the morale. It’s a long season ahead, with 69 more games left this season. As the team works the smaller things out, we’ll be sure to see a Warriors side that we’re used to watching for over a decade now.
Jonathan Kuminga Credits Performance to a Pregame Talk With ‘Certain People’
With Draymond Green being out tonight, Jonathan Kuminga got a chance to start the game in his place. JK did not let that opportunity go to waste. He had 21 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and a block during his time on the floor. After the game, he was asked what helped him find the rhythm tonight.
Kuminga answered and said,
“I had a couple talks with certain people just to give me a shake and keep motivating me, and I felt like we was down a couple people, and it’s something really needed just to go out there and give it all you got.”
When asked what the talks were about, Kuminga said,
“Just keeping me involved, clearing my mind.”
Hopefully, what we saw from Kuminga, Saric, and Podz over the last two games continues when Steph makes his way back to the floor. If others can keep contributing the way they did without Steph, the Warriors would have a much easier time winning games.
