A tired Stephen Curry didn’t erupt for yet another 30-point game Tuesday night 24 hours after leading the Warriors to a big win over the Utah Jazz.
But after Golden State fell behind by as many as 16 points on the second night of a back-to-back, forward Andrew Wiggins powered a second-half surge and the Warriors beat the Phoenix Suns 122-116 at Chase Center, where they defeated the top two teams in the Western Conference in as many nights.
The Suns’ sixth-rated defense bottled up Curry (21 points on 7 for 22 shooting, 1 for 11 from 3-point range), but Wiggins scored 38 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter when Golden State (37-33) outscored Phoenix (48-21) 30-18.
For so much of this season, it has been Curry, the league’s scoring leader, shouldering the load on offense. On Tuesday, in his first game in more than two weeks in which he failed to score 30 points, it was his teammates who stepped up.
In the final minutes of a back-and-forth fourth quarter, Wiggins, forward Juan Toscano-Anderson and guard Jordan Poole hit three straight 3-pointers to take the lead, Wiggins’ midrange jumper extended the cushion to five, and the Warriors ended the game on a 12-6 run.
Poole, whose 30-foot jumper with 1:43 to go gave the Warriors their first lead of the game since the midway point of the first quarter, finished with 20 points off the bench. Toscano-Anderson had seven points, six assists and five rebounds and guard Kent Bazemore chipped in 17 points.
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