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What we learned when Steph and Buddy led the Warriors to victory in the season opener originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
After shaking off opening night rust, the Warriors topped the Portland Trail Blazers 139-104 on Wednesday night at the Moda Center to kick off the 2024-25 NBA season.
The Warriors couldn’t score early and were tied with the Blazers 21-21 entering the second quarter. Then, Golden State found a new gear and couldn’t slow down. From the second quarter to the fourth quarter, the Warriors outscored the Blazers 118-83. Their 35-point victory is the largest margin of victory for a season opener in franchise history.
Steph Curry was one rebound shy of recording the 11th triple-double of his career in the regular season. The Warriors’ superstar guard finished with 17 points, 10 assists, nine rebounds and two steals. He had nine assists before his first loss.
Curry sat for the entire fourth quarter and went plus-23 in 25 minutes.
Andrew Wiggins added 20 points and made four 3-pointers starting alongside Curry in the defensive zone, but Buddy Hield was the biggest story of the night. Hield, in his debut with the Warriors in the regular season, scored 22 points in 15 minutes off the bench. He shot 8 of 12 from the field, 5 of 7 from deep and grabbed five rebounds.
Here are three takeaways from the Warriors’ dominant win, which made a statement to start the regular season against the rebuilding Blazers.
First look at the starting quintet
An hour and a half before kickoff, the anticipation finally came to an end over who coach Steve Kerr’s starting five would be for the Warriors’ season opener. To begin his 11th season at the helm, Kerr opted to go big, by Warriors standards, bringing out Curry, Wiggins, Jonathan Kuminga, Draymond Green and Trayce Jackson-Davis.
The idea is to have a long, athletic group that can stop the opponent defensively while the offense revolves around Curry. And then the Warriors started the game cold by missing their first nine shots. His first score didn’t come until the 6:28 mark to make it a 12-7 game when Curry found a running Green for an easy layup.
Kerr’s starting five played just over five minutes in the first quarter and finished with a -7. The Blazers outscored them 12-5 when the starters failed to score on their first drive together. They didn’t play together again in the second quarter, but they were the first five on the court to start the second half. Fittingly, Curry hit his first 3-pointer of the game on the Warriors’ first possession of the third quarter.
Behind up-tempo defense and shots finally falling, the Warriors’ starting five was a plus-5 in the third quarter. In total, they played just over 11 minutes together and scored a -2, being outscored 25-23. All starters except Kuminga had a positive plus/minus.
Built for depth
During training camp and the Warriors’ six preseason games, Depth was a main story.. The Warriors are deep, very deep. So deep that Kerr used 11 players in the first quarter, and at the start of the second quarter it was 12. The order in which Kerr headed to his bench was also a bit surprising.
Hield, who Kerr has considered his sixth man, was the first off the bench as he replaced Kuminga. Gary Payton II replaced Jackson-Davis shortly after. The next two were Brandin Podziemski and Kevon Looney, followed later by De’Anthony Melton and then Kyle Anderson.
Moses Moody opening the second quarter turned the rotation into 12 men, with only Lindy Waters III and Gui Santos on the sidelines.
Going into halftime after a strong second quarter, the Warriors bench had outscored the Blazers reserves 27-11. Podziemski was a plus-18, Hield was a plus-13, Payton was a plus-11 and Looney was a plus-10. When the big win ended, Podziemski was plus-34, Hield was plus-20, Payton was plus-26 and Looney was plus-13. The depth did its thing.
Both Waters and Santos played the final five minutes and the Warriors bench outscored the Blazers 70-37.
Friends Cubes
Don’t call him the new Splash Brother. Don’t get cute and call him Splash Cousin. But you can’t deny Hield can get cubes in a hurry.
Hield hit not one, not two, not three, but four 3-pointers in the first half to give him 14 points in his first two quarters with the Warriors.
As of last season, this is what the Warriors envisioned with Klay Thompson. A flamethrower from the bench, dangerous enough to completely change a game. Only instead they added someone three years younger who never misses games.
In the Warriors’ perfect 6-0 preseason, Hield finished as the Warriors’ third-leading scorer with 12.2 points per game and shot an absurd 48.7 percent on 3-pointers. Then, in his regular-season debut, he scored 22 points and made 71.4 percent of his seven 3-point attempts. His five 3-pointers are tied for the second most ever made by a player in his Warriors debut.