Stephen Curry scored a season-high 44 points Wednesday, Oct. 28, to lead the Golden State Warriors past the Minnesota Timberwolves 119-114 at Target Center. The Warriors have won two straight after an 0-3 start that dropped them to 26th in NBA.com’s power rankings, while Minnesota has lost two in a row after opening 3-0.
Curry shot 11-of-27 from the field, 6-of-16 from three and 16-of-16 from the line. He added eight rebounds, six assists and two steals against two turnovers. Rookie Yaxel Lendeborg scored 26 on 11-of-20 shooting, extending the start that has made him Golden State’s second scorer.
It was Curry’s 15th game of 40 or more points since he turned 35, which tied LeBron James for the most by any player that age or older. Curry is 38. Nineteen of Wednesday’s points came in the second quarter, in just under nine minutes and on 6-of-10 shooting, as Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area detailed.
Two nights earlier, in the Warriors’ first win of the season at Denver, Curry finished with 24 points on perfect shooting from the field and the foul line.
Minnesota played without Anthony Edwards. The Timberwolves announced Tuesday that Edwards would miss extended time, reported as up to two months, after an arthroscopic procedure on his right knee. Edwards averaged 33.3 points through Minnesota’s first four games. Jonathan Kuminga led the Timberwolves with 20 points against the team that drafted him.
The Free Throws Mattered More Than the Jumper
Curry’s shooting was ordinary by his standards. His threes produced 18 points, he went 5-of-11 inside the arc for 10 more, and the free-throw line supplied the other 16. That is 16 free-throw attempts against 27 field-goal attempts, a ratio of about 0.59, which is high for a jump-shooting guard.
This isn’t a breakout. Fifteen games of 40 or more since turning 35 show he has been scoring like this for years, so the honest read is that he is still at that level. The caveat is the opponent: a Minnesota defense that had just lost Edwards is a weaker test than the Warriors will usually face, and one win does not show Golden State has fixed what went wrong in the 0-3 start.
Friday’s Test Is Whether Curry Keeps Getting to the Line
The Warriors host the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday, Oct. 30. Free-throw volume carries over better than a second-quarter shooting run does. Whether Curry keeps drawing fouls against a healthier defense will say more about repeating Wednesday than any single shooting night.
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