\u201cWe\u2019ve watched this three games in a row,\u201d Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. \u201cWhere we\u2019ve found a really good groove, played good two-way basketball, and obviously the last game was a gut punch \u2026 it feels great to see the guys respond and come up with a big win against a great team without so many of our guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Warriors had every excuse to punt this game with so many older players out, but they found a way to win. The first half was one of the ugliest 24 minutes, by both teams, in recent memory. The Warriors shot 38.4 percent from the field. They had lost the last 36 games in which they shot under 39 percent, according to Basketball Reference. But the fact that they were able to respond emotionally and close is a good sign for a team that has a large dose of both rest and practice days on the horizon after Sunday\u2019s game at the Chicago Bulls.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat game in Philly hurt us because we had the game in our hands, and last play (happened), tough loss,\u201d Santos said. \u201cThe NBA\u2019s about there\u2019s one day you\u2019re down, you lost the game at the last shot, and there is games that we win like that. So that\u2019s the grace to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Gui](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-2250441177-scaled-e1765092678626.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Gui Santos was one of several younger, unsung Warriors to carry the team past the Cavs. (Jason Miller \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Of course, even the good nights with this group still offer up questions about other issues that seem to linger just beneath the surface. On Saturday, it was forward Jonathan Kuminga\u2019s continued struggles. He shot just 1-for-10 from the field and Kuminga is now 8-for-32 over his last three games since returning from a knee injury that kept him out of seven straight. Kerr did his best to deflect the question when asked what the Warriors can do to help him get out of the rut he\u2019s been in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got 15 guys on this team, and every player goes through ups and downs all year,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re not going to make this a referendum on JK. We had a great win tonight. Some guys had big nights, some guys struggled a little bit. We won. That\u2019s all that matters. That\u2019s all that anyone cares about.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the short term, that\u2019s true. But the takeaway from Saturday\u2019s game is contingent on whether the Warriors can build off the momentum they created for themselves. If they keep getting that kind of production up and down the roster, they\u2019ll finally catch the kind of rhythm they\u2019ve been seeking all season. In order to do that, they need to help Kuminga find a level of consistency that has eluded him since the first two weeks of the year.<\/p>\n
As the Warriors celebrated the kind of win that could be remembered later in the season, they did so with a renewed belief they still have the kind of talent that can fuel a turnaround when they get Curry and a full complement of players back over the next week. Kerr knows that a win like this can light a spark within his group. Now they just need to back it up Sunday and prove it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the older guys, they love when you get wins like this one,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cIt galvanizes the group, everybody feels good, you move onto the next one, you try to go get another one, and this is how you build momentum with a win like this. But we\u2019ve got to make sure we capitalize.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 A few minutes after the injury-depleted Golden State Warriors finished off their biggest win of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2243,355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-334714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-golden-state-warriors","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}