{"id":501559,"date":"2026-03-03T16:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/501559\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T16:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:44:07","slug":"warriors-nate-williams-could-play-more-amid-moses-moody-injury-vs-clippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/501559\/","title":{"rendered":"Warriors’ Nate Williams could play more amid Moses Moody injury vs Clippers"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO \u2013 Nate Williams<\/a> crouched low in his defensive stance, sized up Kawhi Leonard for a brief moment, and slid his feet the full 94 feet from one Chase Center baseline to the other.<\/p>\n

Leonard did not even have the ball. Not that it mattered to the Warriors<\/a> guard, whose intensity never waned for even a single moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Facing one of the greatest players of the generation in isolation? Williams \u2013 on a two-way contract \u2013 saw no reason to fret.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a great player, but he bleeds just like I bleed,\u201d Williams said of Leonard postgame. \u201cI don\u2019t fear no challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, he might have an unexpected opportunity to showcase that dogged determination after scoring 18 points in the Warriors\u2019 loss Monday night to Leonard\u2019s Clippers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moses Moody jammed his shooting right wrist and injured his shoulder during the game.<\/p>\n

If the Warriors\u2019 everyday starting wing will need to miss time \u2013 or even if Moody is good to go come Thursday\u2019s showdown in Houston \u2013 coach Steve Kerr expressed confidence in the team\u2019s newest addition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s important anyway, given all the guys who are absent right now,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cI think Nate has played really well. It\u2019s fun watching him, a young player, pretty live body, can make a shot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t the first time Williams has wowed in the Bay Area. The Rochester, New York native spent his senior year of high school in Napa at Prolific Prep in 2017. Having found his way back to the Bay Area, Williams, now 27, has made a solid first impression with the Warriors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With Jimmy Butler out for the season with an ACL tear, Kristaps Porzingis still ailing from a mysterious illness and Steph Curry still at least a week away from returning, the Warriors need some firepower.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Williams, who has played in 47 NBA games across the previous three seasons for Portland and Houston, is nowhere in the same stratosphere as the Warriors\u2019 stars as a scorer.<\/p>\n

He has averaged just 3.9 points per game in the league.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But through sheer hustle on the glass and with a streaky catch-and-shoot jumper, Williams does bring an unpredictable dimension to a stagnant Warriors attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Against the Clippers, he grabbed two offensive boards and drew six foul shots while playing far taller than his spindly 6-foot-5 frame.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It capped what had been a hectic last four days for Williams, who, according to Kerr, also recently became a father.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He played 36 minutes Friday in Santa Cruz and scored 26 points for the Warriors\u2019 G League team against San Diego.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then he made the commute up the coast and the most of his 15 minutes against the Lakers on Saturday, scoring seven points and dishing out two assists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Williams turned around just 18 hours later and put in 10 points in 10 minutes on Sunday afternoon, facing the G League Clippers again at Chase Center as part of the SeaDubs\u2019 yearly showcase in San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally, he played 18 more minutes in Monday\u2019s loss as one of the few bright spots for Golden State.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a guy who knows who he is, and that\u2019s always a good thing,\u201d veteran center Al Horford said. \u201cYou can always use guys who bring that energy and have a toughness to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is a heavy workload for a player who just signed with the Warriors on a two-way contract two weeks ago. But Williams sees it as no big deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After all, all he has wanted is an opportunity. Now Williams is ready to make the most of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re just teaching me, telling me the plays and throwing me in the fire,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI\u2019m loving it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2013 Nate Williams crouched low in his defensive stance, sized up Kawhi Leonard for a brief…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2356,2243,355,99],"class_list":["post-501559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-california","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501559","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=501559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}