For the past six days, the Golden State Warriors watched 38-year-old Stephen Curry lift them from winless to a .500 record with a historic shooting display.
Now they get to see what they can do without him.
Sitting at 3-3 after an 0-3 start to the season, the Warriors will attempt to get over .500 when they host the Los Angeles Clippers in San Francisco on Sunday night.
Curry began the Warriors’ run going 8-for-8 from the field — including hitting all three of his 3-pointers — and 5-for-5 at the free-throw line in a 134-114 win at Denver on Monday. He finished the game with 24 points, becoming the first player in NBA history to score at least 20 points without missing a shot on that many attempts.
He then exploded for 44 points two nights later in Minneapolis in a 119-114 triumph over the Timberwolves before adding his third headline-catching demonstration of the week when he bombed in eight 3-pointers and scored 31 points Friday night in a 112-95 home victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.
But that experience also brings the need for an occasional night off. Curry will get that against the Clippers as he is already listed as out of the game for right-knee injury management.
With the longest-tenured Warrior sitting out (along with Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, and Moses Moody), one of the newest members of the team could make up much of the missed production.
Rookie Yaxel Lendeborg, the No. 11 pick out of Michigan in June’s draft, is second on the team in scoring at 19.8 points per game, leads the Warriors in rebounding (7.8 per game), and has the best field goal percentage among Golden State players playing at least 14 minutes per game (48.2%).
In his six games played, the 24-year-old Lendeborg has led the Warriors in scoring twice, rebounding three times and assists twice. He has quickly settled in on a team dominated by veterans. Lendeborg will look to rebound after scoring just six points on 2-for-3 shooting against the Lakers, a game in which he committed five turnovers and fouled out.
“Try not to wet the bed as bad as I did,” he joked when asked about his performance in a game the Warriors actually came back from down 25 to win. He then added, “Or when you’re having moments like that, try to lean on your teammates a little more.”
Another rookie who struggled on Friday was the Clippers’ Keaton Wagler. Taken six spots ahead of Lendeborg, Wagler shot just 2-for-11 en route to 12 points in a 127-101 loss at Minnesota.
He has scored in double figures in all five of his NBA games, but he’s shot just 24.4% from the field during the Clippers’ four-game losing streak.
The 19-year-old, who last season played in the same conference (Big Ten) as Lendeborg, acknowledged he’s learning on the fly while also taking on an important role for a Los Angeles team missing several key players, including Brandon Ingram (offseason heel surgery) and Bradley Beal (sore right knee).
“I’ve got to make sure to create separation,” he explained to reporters this week about his shooting woes. “That’s one thing I’ve been trying to work on — to be able to handle the pressure throughout the whole game.”
