The Golden State Warriors may have slipped back into mediocrity after their stellar start to the season, but they refuse to fall below the magic line of average. With a 139-105 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday night, the Dubs climbed back above .500 with a 17-16 record…and have never been below .500 at any point this season. Let’s hope it continues like this, although a little separation between the win and loss columns would certainly be nice.

After a little break for the holidays (hoping everyone had a wonderful Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/New Year), the player grades are back. As always, grades are based on my expectations for each player, with a grade of “B” representing that player’s average performance.

Note: True Shooting Percentage (TS) is a scoring efficiency metric that takes three-pointers and free throws into account. Entering Thursday’s games, the league average TS was 57.4%.

Andrew Wiggins

26 minutes, 15 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 block, 1 turnover, 2 fouls, 6-for-11 shooting, 1-for-4 three-pointers, 2-for-2 free throws, 63.1% TS , +20

One of the nice things about Jonathan Kuminga’s recent emergence (and the addition of Dennis Schröder) is that it allows Wiggins to play a more natural role for him. While Wiggins certainly has the talent to put up points, he does his best work when he’s not tasked with being the team’s second scorer… which not only allows him the offense to happen more naturally, but also allows him to move toward it focus on the other elements of his game, which in my opinion are his greatest attributes.

From that perspective, this was a near-perfect Wiggins game. He was aggressive in every phase of the game: he attacked the glass and often pounced from the perimeter when a long rebound went unattended; he attacked the rim, both with and without the ball; and he attacked Philly’s offensive linemen and played strong defense against both Tyrese Maxey and Paul George.

Great game.

Grade: A
Post-game bonus: Led the team in rebounds.

Draymond Green

31 minutes, 15 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 blocks, 3 turnovers, 3 fouls, 6-for-10 shooting, 1-for-5 three-pointers, 2-for-2 free throws, 68.9% TS , +30

The Sixers challenged Green to shoot threes all night long. After making one and mocking Philly’s bench for it, Dray became a little trigger-happy as he tried to prove his point.

Other than that, I have no notes for Green. Sure, three turnovers aren’t ideal, but they were far from egregious either. The defense was great. The build-up to the game was excellent. The rumbling north-south Cam Skattebo-style drives to the edge opened up the course throughout the night. Simply a delightful performance.

Grade: A

Trayce Jackson Davis

21 minutes, 3 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 block, 1 turnover, 3 fouls, 1-for-5 shooting, 1-for-2 free throws, 25.5% TS, +14

Jackson-Davis’ numbers don’t look great, but I think they deserve some context. His teammates tried to force him into multiple passes early on, perhaps hoping his athleticism could drive the seemingly ailing Joel Embiid off the court, and TJD ended up in some spots where he did good work only to get a lob or Needle intercepted a pass and then had no choice but to take a difficult shot.

Ultimately, Embiid got his shot, but Jackson-Davis was still able to hold his own on defense and still do some things on offense. If you just look at the stats, he was dominated at center (Embiid finished the game with 28 points and 14 rebounds). But there was a reason the second-year pro could skate 21 minutes and Kevon Looney only appeared in garbage time. I thought he looked a lot better than the stats suggested.

Grade: B

Dennis Schröder

26 minutes, 15 points, 4 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals, 4 fouls, 5-for-9 shooting, 3-for-4 three-pointers, 2-for-2 free throws, 75.9% TS, +17

This was a glimpse into why the Warriors acquired Schröder and how good they can be when he’s comfortable with his new teammates and operating in his new system. He made two early three-pointers – and a couple of excellent passes – to jump-start the Dubs as they grabbed an early lead they would never relinquish. He complements Steph Curry excellently and can also lead the second unit excellently. If he continues to play like this, the Warriors can once again have a realistic idea of ​​what they want to achieve.

Grade: A

Steph Curry

30 minutes, 30 points, 6 rebounds, 10 assists, 1 steal, 2 turnovers, 1 foul, 11-for-15 shooting, 8-for-8 three-pointers, 100.0% TS, +32

My goodness. My damn goodness. Was it Reggie Miller who strangely talked on the show about Curry possibly retiring soon? Was it frustration with how many games he had with poor shooting this year? Was it just the accidental brilliance that comes out every now and then in an absolute classic?

Whatever it was, Curry was nothing short of spectacular on Thursday, averaging a comical two points per shot attempt. For the 12th time in his career, Curry shot a perfect 100 percent from the three-point line, but this was a personal high for the most threes he had made without a miss…and just one shy of the NBA record. And all this after being listed as “questionable” on the injury report due to an injury to… you guessed it… his shooting hand.

Pure magic, this man.

Grade: A+
Post-game bonus: Led the team in points and assists, the team’s best plus/minus.

Jonathan Kuminga

25 minutes, 20 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 steal, 1 turnover, 2 fouls, 8-for-11 shooting, 2-for-3 three-pointers, 2-for-3 free throws, 81.2% TS , +25

The Warriors got off to a good start, building a small lead over Philly before one of the substitutes came on. And then Kuminga came in and got off to a great start and the Dubs never looked back.

Kuminga was brilliantly aggressive in the first quarter. He scored seven points on perfect shooting and the offense seemed to be working because of his activity. He would bully the 76ers defense, get to his spot, and then either score or find the open man.

That set the tone for the team, but it didn’t stop there; Kuminga did it all night long.

He’s been a real star lately. Since returning from a brief injury layoff in late November, he has averaged more than 20 points per game and in his last four games he has averaged 26.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game. He’s looking more and more like he could potentially be the second star they’ve been looking for, and not just on offense – this was a total achievement for Kuminga, and there was plenty at the other end of the pitch too to love.

Grade: A+

Buddy Hield

21 minutes, 3 points, 1 rebound, 1 assist, 3 fouls, 1-for-5 shooting, 1-for-5 three-pointers, 30.0% TS, +17

Hield’s bucket made it feel like a big bucket. But he didn’t really do anything different against his old team, which probably frustrated him a little.

Grade: C-

Moses moody

15 minutes, 12 points, 2 rebounds, 1 turnover, 2 fouls, 4-on-5 shooting, 4-on-5 three-pointers, 120.0% TS, +13

Moody’s game was just like Hield’s, except instead of missing almost all of his three-point attempts, he made almost all of them, and instead of playing mediocre defense, he played great defense.

It turns out that these things are pretty important.

Grade: A

Lindy Waters III

16 minutes, 10 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block, 2 fouls, 4-for-7 shooting, 2-for-4 three-pointers, 71.4% TS, -2

Waters has been pretty quiet lately, but with Brandin Podziemski and Gary Payton II both out with injuries, he got a chance to be in the rotation for this game. It was nice to see him find some offense inside the three-point line, and it was also nice to see him hit some threes since he had shot just 2-for-17 from long range in the last four games. .. and only 0:0 -4 from the inside of the arc.

Grade: B+
Post-game bonus: The worst plus/minus on the team.

Kyle Anderson

8 minutes, 8 points, 2 rebounds, 1 turnover, 3-on-3 shooting, 2-on-3 free throws, 92.6% TS, +1

Anderson had limited playing time in this game, but he got a good chunk of playing time thanks to the blowout. Unsurprisingly, he handled it like a pro and was prepared for the moment, even when there was little at stake.

Grade: A

Kevon Looney

8 minutes, 6 points, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 1 block, 1 turnover, 3-on-3 shooting, 0-on-1 free throws, 87.2% TS, +1

Looney also handled his role as a pure player with seasoned professionalism… and also managed to pad the box score in his limited time on the court.

Grade: A

Gui Santos

8 minutes, 2 points, 1 assist, 1 block, 1-on-2 shooting, 0-on-1 three-pointers, 50.0% TS, +1

Nice to see that Santos has a small lead. Hopefully the Dubs can get a few more slips to give him some seasoning.

Grade: B+

Pat Spencer

8 minutes, 0 points, 1 rebound, 3 assists, 0-on-1 shooting, 0.0% TS, +1

I can tell you this: If you have to wait until absolute zero time to get into a game and then have three times as many assists as shots made, your teammates and coaches will notice.

Grade: A-

Inactive on Thursday: Gary Payton II, Brandin Podziemski, Quinten Post