Golden State Warriors remained at the of the NBA after decimating the ambitious squad of the Chicago Bulls on Friday night. While the game ended up, for the most part, being “the Stephen Curry show”, several other Warriors players made an impact.
After the 119-93 win, head coach Steve Kerr praised rookie Jonathan Kuminga, who received an extended amount of playing time during Friday’s matchup.
“It was really exciting,” Kerr told reporters, per NBC Sports Bay Area. “He’s really earned the minutes he’s getting. He had a great scrimmage yesterday in our 4-on-4 that we played with the young guys.
His attitude, his approach over the last week – you have to remember he missed three weeks, so he basically missed most of camp and so he was swimming upstream a little bit.
And I think over the last week, he’s made huge strides and we wanted to reward him.”
Even though the game resulted in a blowout, a considerable portion of Kuminga’s minutes came when the game was still very much up for grabs. Many times, he was called to guard NBA and Bulls’ superstar DeMar DeRozan.
Kuminga was a plus-seven on the 16 minutes he remained on the floor. He scored eight points, on 4-of-6 shooting from the field. Kerr expects to keep Kuminga in his rotation for the near future.
“As long as he goes out there and runs the floor,” Kerr said, “plays defense, takes care of the ball and passes like he did tonight, and we’re going to continue to give him opportunities.”
