Jonathan Kuminga’s remarkable climb sparks ‘extraordinary’ Steve Kerr responds…..
Jonathan Kuminga’s stellar showing continues. Against the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday, the forward had 29 points in 37 minutes of play, leading the Golden State Warriors to the win. Following the game, head coach Steve Kerr had nothing but positive comments to say about the 21-year-old.
“This last month, I think he’s really broken through and it’s just been amazing to watch because it’s been two-and-a-half years of a lot of ups and downs, and he’s stayed with it the whole time,” Kerr said, per ClutchPoints’ Michael Corvo. “I’m just so impressed with what he’s done. He’s really becoming a hell of a player.”
During Friday’s win, Kuminga’s aforementioned 29 points sprouted from an efficient 11-of-15 (73.3%) field goal shooting. Additionally, the forward made six of his seven free throws and hauled down six rebounds as well. The Warriors’ latest outing now marks the eighth straight game where Kuminga has scored no less than 20+ points.
Because of his recent production, Kuminga has been part of the starting lineup once again, even with Draymond Green back in action. Kerr’s latest lineup shuffle includes Kuminga and Green at the four and five respectively, with Andrew Wiggins, Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry rounding up the outside.
This season, Kuminga is averaging 15.1 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. While his numbers remain steady, they don’t tell the entire story. The forward’s youth allows him to bring a level of energy that makes him the perfect fit to play alongside Green in the frontcourt. While he may lack size compared to other bigs, Kuminga’s athleticism more than makes up for it.
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Steph Curry confirms simplifying the offense “probably last week”
As you might already know, I suggested after the Christmas Game that getting the ball to Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson might be better served with an adjustment to include Jonathan Kuminga.
And then when I realized that the franchise’s ecosystem had total buy-in from top to bottom — and that this way of doing this for the past decade might take some time to humanly steer the cargo ship around in this Bay — I thought maybe Curry would have to take the bull by its horns and just give that shoulder tap to the man (Steve Kerr) who wove the tapestry all these years for Steph:
After the Philadelphia game, and thanks to a line of questioning pursued by The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami (finally!), it looks like Steph and, presumably, Draymond Green had that conversation with Kerr, as Curry recounted on the postgame podium:
Now, the Memphis game exposed the weakness of 100% devotion to “get the ball to Steph or Klay” with their top-blocking (and ironically tonight is the rematch of that and hopefully this go-round, Curry eliminates those “whatever turnovers”), but the brutal loss came at the perfect time and was necessary to evolve the Warriors into “get Kuminga downhill every once in awhile to keep opponents honest.”
The Warriors implemented a scheme where Steph would set the ball-screen, leading to more touches for JK. Also tonight, it should be interesting to see if Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins has Vince Williams, Jr. top-blocking Curry again. The videos and transcripts and game notes from PHI-GSW are below…
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