SAN FRANCISCO — After celebrating up and down the Golden State Warriors’ sideline throughout his team’s impressive 128-117 win over the Denver Nuggets on Sunday afternoon, injured star guard Stephen Curry sat in front of his locker stall after the game and smiled when the 22-year-old point guard Brandin Podziemski started to make the short walk from the locker room to the interview room after the game.
“Yes, Podz!” Curry exclaimed, as the man who just racked up 18 points, a career-high 15 rebounds, nine assists and a steal in 37 minutes walked up the 13-step staircase it takes to get from those two places inside Chase Center.
Curry, who remains out because of a lingering knee injury, spoke for many of his teammates and coaches on Sunday with those two words. On a day when the Warriors were playing without their MVP and veterans Kristaps Porziņģis (illness) and Draymond Green (lower back soreness), they got contributions throughout the roster with seven different players in double figures — but it was the soft-spoken young guard who played the biggest role down the stretch. After starting the game 1-for-10 from the field, Podziemski went 6-for-6 in the fourth quarter, hit two threes and repeatedly made big plays when the Warriors needed them. He was everywhere.
“It was phenomenal,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said of Podziemski’s late-game performance. “I think he had eight rebounds in the quarter, hit a couple big shots. He was brilliant.”
To understand just how impactful Podziemski was late in the game, consider that his 15 points and eight rebounds are just the eighth time in the play-by-play era (since 1997-98) that any player has recorded those numbers in any quarter as a reserve, according to the Warriors. The fact that he did it in the last 12 minutes of the game made it stand out even more.
The last time a Warriors reserve had at least 18 points and 15 rebounds off the bench was when Corey Maggette registered 24 points and 16 rebounds in January 2009.
Podziemski said late in the game he felt like he was in “a little bit of a flow state” with the way the game was coming to him.
“Everything feels slow motion, kind of,” he explained. “I think those last two threes that I shot, everything felt so slow … the goal is to always try to find that. The great players do that. That’s really what it felt like.”
Podziemski has never lacked confidence in his career and aspires to be one of those great players he describes. It’s what has helped him get to this level in the first place. But after struggling early in the season to find his rhythm, even Podziemski has looked shaken at times. He is a frequent target of the fan base’s ire online for his unpredictable play and, earlier in the season, for some of the different comments he made to the media. But as he showed on Sunday, he still has plenty of talent and is growing into his own game in just his third year in the league.
“It’s been up and down for sure,” Kerr acknowledged of Podziemski’s season. “But our season has been up and down as a whole, and sometimes a team’s struggles impacts the individuals. But we know what he can do — for the last couple years, he’s been one of our highest plus/minus players. He’s a very versatile player. The rebounding is what attracted us to him in the first place, coming out of Santa Clara. When a guy rebounds like that, you know he has great anticipation.”
Brandin Podziemski, left, was one of several Warriors who stepped up with Stephen Curry (knee), Kristaps Porziņģis (illness) and Draymond Green (back) out against the Nuggets. (Kelley L Cox / Associated Press)
Kerr noted that some of Podziemski’s confidence, especially on Sunday, came from gobbling up every rebound he could find. While praising Podziemski’s individual effort, Kerr also detailed one of the ways in which the Warriors’ coaching staff is trying to help Podziemski grow in his game.
“He’s a really confident guy,” Kerr said. “He wants the ball. He wants the big shot. But like every player, he needs the rhythm, he needs the flow of the game. And he can help himself. That’s one of the things we’re trying to teach him: He can help himself by actually getting off the ball earlier in a possession and then getting it back. At times, he wants to make the play from the outset, and that’s a lot to do that. So he’s still learning and growing, but that was a fantastic night for him.”
Podziemski, who turns 23 on Wednesday, is in the midst of one of his best stretches of the season. He’s scored in double figures in five straight games and will be counted on even more as Curry remains out.
But he is just one of several Warriors players who chipped in to make a huge difference on Sunday. Al Horford had 22 points and seven assists. Moses Moody continued his solid play with 23 points, seven rebounds and five assists. The same goes for Gui Santos, who had 17 points, seven assists and five rebounds. De’Anthony Melton had 20 points, Gary Payton II had 15 points and Will Richard had 11. The fact that the Warriors still won on a day when Nuggets star center Nikola Jokić had 35 points, 20 rebounds and 12 assists made the game even more memorable.
It was one Podziemski should remember for a while because it was a reminder of just how many different ways he can impact a game. Horford praised his assertiveness on the floor, and his all-around play, coupled with his late-game willpower, allowed the Warriors to outscore the Nuggets 33-16 in the fourth and slam the game shut. For his part, Podziemski said he trusts his basketball IQ and remains buoyed by the fact that it has gotten him to this point in his career.
“The worst thing you can do is go out there and second-guess your decisions,” Podziemski said. “And it looks even worse. So I just go out there and play the game.”
He did exactly that on Sunday, and in the process, he helped the Warriors pull off their best win of the season. As the Warriors head down the home stretch of the season, his challenge will be to replicate games just like Sunday’s, where he can find different ways to help the group instead of trying to do everything on his own (as he’s done sporadically throughout the season).
“It’s really more about finding that sweet spot,” Kerr said. “Where he’s making plays, but he’s not dominating the ball. And that’s his next step. You can see tonight there was a little of both and he got himself in trouble a couple of times, but when he gets off it and then the ball starts moving, then he gets it back, it’s totally different … he’s a really unique player, but he’s still finding his way.”