There really should be only one Warrior Wonder from last night’s loss to the Knicks

If you ask me, there’s really only one correct answer as to who was the Warrior Wonder last night. It’s D’Angelo Russell. End of discussion. Case closed.

But seriously, Russell had one heck of a game. He scored 32 points, and while it wasn’t the most efficient performance out there — 12-of-27 from the field (44.4 percent) — it also was far from being an egregious shooting performance. In fact, Russell’s 6-of-14 clip from beyond the arc (42.9 percent) was the undisputed best shooting clip from three-point range from any of the Warriors players.

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Because while Russell shot the lights out in that department, the rest of the team was absolutely horrific from beyond the arc. Warriors players not named D’Angelo Russell shot a combined 4-of-23 on threes, good for an astronomically terrible 17.4 percent. Yiiiiikes.

In this tank battle where the Knicks were a bunch of modern American M1 Abrams tanks and the Warriors were a platoon of British Mark I tanks from World War I, Russell was that one M1 Abrams the Warriors could afford to send out. He kept the Warriors afloat with this amazing game-tying three-pointer to send the game into overtime:

If not for that three, the Warriors would’ve lost in regulation and would’ve been universally recognized as the absolute worst team in the NBA.

But thanks to Russell, the Warriors instead lost in overtime and delayed their being recognized as the absolute worst team in the NBA by about 30 minutes. Thank goodness for still having a player in the clutch! Only this time, it’s not to win a game, but to delay the inevitable!

If you ask me, Russell definitely takes the cake as the Warrior Wonder, but since we’re a democracy here at Golden State of Mind, there are a couple of candidates worth mentioning, and we’re letting you choose from them. The Warriors were down by 18 at the half, and they did manage to outscore the Knicks in the third quarter, 30-19. If not for that, the Warriors wouldn’t even have gotten to overtime.

So I feel it’s appropriate to recognize the efforts of a few players who made such a furious third-quarter run possible. Marquese Chriss finished with 12 points, and his hustle on the boards and on defense injected a huge burst of energy into his team. As usual, Alec Burks was the leading scorer off the bench, scoring 18 points which included a crucial three-pointer late in the fourth quarter.

Oh, and we musn’t forget about Draymond Green. This probably got lost in the fact that the Warriors just lost against the Knicks and became the worst team in the league in the process, but Green actually had a triple double — he had 14 points, 10 rebounds, and 12 assists. A triple-double for Green usually turns into a win for the Warriors, and to be fair, it almost did. But alas, it wasn’t enough in the end. Green now has 24 regular season triple-doubles, and after last night’s game, the Warriors are now 23-1 in such games.

Yup, you read that right — last night’s loss to the Knicks was the first time the Warriors lost in the regular season with Green recording a triple-double.

And it was against the New York Knicks.

I’ll let that thought marinate within your heads.