The Warriors’ wild loss to the Utah Jazz will be remembered by the bizarre way in which Golden State blew a four-point lead within the final 13 seconds. But Jonathan Kuminga’s performance and skirmish with Jazz guard Jordan Clarkson shouldn’t go unnoticed.
The Warriors don’t erase a 12-point fourth-quarter deficit without Kuminga’s physical scoring and staunch one-on-one defense. No sequence best exemplified his impact and competitiveness than his offense-to-defense efforts with 36 seconds remaining in the game.
First the 20-year-old threw down a dunk off a falling feed from Jordan Poole to give the Warriors a two-point lead with 36 seconds remaining. Kuminga bottled up Clarkson — Utah’s leading scorer — on the ensuing inbound play, blocking his jumper much to the chagrin of Clarkson, who swatted at Kuminga and the ball from behind. That’s when things got heated.
Kuminga pushed Clarkson away, prompting Donte DiVincenzo to wrap his teammate up and pull him back, and the pair started pushing each other as other teammates started to intervene. That’s when Clarkson appeared to square up Kuminga.
Kuminga laughed as officials stepped in to break up the scuffle.
“It was so funny,” Kuminga told reporters after the game. “I saw him square up and I’m like, ‘You’re the one who fouled me, I ain’t gotta do all that.’ So it was funny just seeing that.”
The hard foul earned Clarkson a Flagrant 2 charge. Utah’s best scorer was ejected from the game. The Warriors would unwillingly compensate them for their losses. First, Klay Thompson was caught ball-watching and left Malik Beasley wide open for a 3-pointer to put Utah down one. With seven seconds left, Jordan Poole turned the ball over and Utah’s Simone Fontecchio scored the go-ahead dunk to secure the win with a second left.
In the fog of a head-scratching loss, Kuminga came away with a season-high 24 points with five rebounds, a block and a steal and was plus-8 in 30 minutes.
“His defense was incredible on Clarkson on that one possession at the end there,” Thompson said. “His ability to finish around the rim, JK is a special talent and he showcased that tonight. And while he’s young in his career, when he keeps things simple, it’s impressive to watch and he’s going to add layers to his game as each season goes by, so just an incredible talent.”
It was a performance in keeping with Kuminga’s upward trend of late; he’s averaging 8 points per game, 4.5 rebounds per game and has totaled a plus-23 over the Warriors’ last eight games.
“JK was tremendous tonight, fantastic,” coach Steve Kerr said. “He continued his recent play as far as defense and running the floor and really being solid but he added the scoring, getting to the rim, posting up a couple times. Fantastic defensive play down the stretch when he blocked Clarkson’s shot and then got fouled.
“JK was magnificent and it’s a shame we couldn’t finish it off with a win because I thought both he and Moses [Moody] played huge minutes for us down the stretch and made big plays and again, got to close the door, we didn’t close it.”
